LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Shelf _lH_4_B> 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




FIRST CHURCH OF HARTFORD. 
Erected 1807. 



HISTORY 



OF THE 



First Church in Hartford, 



1633-1883. 



BY 



/ 



GEORGE LEON WALKER. 



Illustrated 




HARTFORD : 

BEOWIT & GBOSS, 
■ii 






*«& 



Copyright, 1884. 
By George Leon Walker. 



gjedicafced 



TO THE 

MEMBERS OF THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD, 
Both of the present Fellowship and those of the Disper- 
sion Scattered Abroad, 
And also to the Memory 
Of all those once numbered here 
Who have ceased from their labors and entered into rest, 
As a tribute of love and honor 
For the living and the dead, 
by this Church's 
Fourteenth Minister. 



PREFACE. 



The duty of preparing this History of the First Church in 
Hartford seemed to be laid upon the writer by the double consid- 
eration of the absence of any tolerably adequate narrative of the 
Church's story, and the anticipated celebration during his pastor- 
ate of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of its eccle- 
siastical organization. 

To these incentives was added the further one that not only 
was the Church's story in large measure untold, but certain pas- 
sages of that story had been to a considerable extent mistold. 

In contemplating the undertaking, the writer was well aware 
that there are many men in Hartford better qualified by nature 
and by long familiarity with the place and its literature, to fulfill 
this service than himself, a comparative stranger. Things which 
to them are a part of family tradition or of early and scarce 
avoidable acquaintance, would come to him only by painstaking 
inquiry or accidental discovery, if indeed they came at all. 

The writing of a History of this Church furthermore was an 
enterprise made the more difficult for any one, by the absence to 
a great degree, of those documentary memorials which every eccle- 
siastical establishment is supposed to keep of its own transactions. 

The entire documentary records both of Church and Society 
for the first fifty-two years after the Church's origin have disap- 
peared. The story of that whole period has to be gathered up 
so far as it can be gathered at all, from the collateral sources of 
Township and Colonial records, subsequently recorded narratives, 
with a few stray . ecclesiastical relics of a contemporaneous 
character. 

In 1685, Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, the sixth minister of this 
Church, began entering in a little volume a meager account of his 
own ministerial acts, and to some extent the actions of the 



vi PREFACE. 

Church; continuing it to his death in 1732. This account the 
Revs. Daniel Wadsworth and Edward Dorr followed by similar 
entries in the same volume, bringing the slender chronicle down 
to the year 1772. From that period and throughout the entire 
pastorate of Dr. Nathan Strong, and until the installation of 
Rev. Joel Hawes in 18 18, no Church record remains. 

The Society records have been happily better preserved, from 
about 1685 onward. Though here, again, nothing corresponding 
to a Treasurer's account can be found for very considerable por- 
tions of the period. The complete and satisfactory telling of the 
History of the First Church in Hartford was therefore an impos- 
sibility, and even its partial narration more than ordinarily 
difficult. 

Nevertheless the fact remained that the " Centennial Discourse" 
preached by Dr. Hawes in 1836, was the only attempt which had 
been made towards a consecutive account of the Church's history ; 
and the two and a half century annniversary of its birth was just 
at hand. 

Whatever his deficiencies, therefore, the writer felt called on to 
do what he could to supply the lack of a better service. He was 
encouraged — especially respecting those passages of the history 
which have been referred to as in a measure hitherto mistold — by 
the availability for present use of certain papers unknown to Rev. 
Dr. Trumbull and other historians of Connecticut ecclesiastical 
affairs ; but whose recent discovery, and publication in 1870, 
make an explication of the period to which they refer, possible as 
it had not been before. 

While engaged in the preparation of this volume and when it 
was in large measure 'ready for the press, the occurrence of the 
Celebration of the Anniversary to which reference has above been 
made, called on the writer for An Address for that occasion, the 
material for which was largely drawn from the manuscript of this 
History; the language being freely appropriated wherever the 
writer chose to use the phraseology he had already employed. 

Acknowledgments for assistance in this undertaking are due 
to many; but especially to Dr. J. Hammond Trumbull and Chas. 
J. Hoadly, Esq., whose acquaintance with early Connecticut his- 
tory — unequaled by that of any other two living men — has been 
with utmost kindness put at the writer's frequent service ; indica- 



PREFACE. vii 

tions of which fact will be found abundantly scattered through 
this volume. 

Thanks are due also to the cooperate interest and aid of the 
present officers and members of the First Church and Society in 
carrying forward this work, and for their forbearance in tolerat- 
ing the neglect on the writer's part of some pastoral service he 
would otherwise have performed. Written amid the pressure of 
constant parochial labor, and some family anxieties and bereave- 
ments, this History of the First Church, is now commended to 
the kindly consideration of all, and especially of those who know 
by some measure of experience, both the difficulty of such an 
endeavor and the liability to error in the' most conscientious per- 
formance of it. 

Hartford, May, 1884. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE. 

First Church of Hartford, - - Frontispiece. 

St. Peter's Church, Tilton, - 20 

Pastors' Monuments in Old Burying-Ground, - 272 

Portrait of Dr. Nathan Strong, - - - 333 

Portrait of Dr. Joel Hawes, - - - 367 



Map of Hartford in 1640, ----- 88 

Ground Plan of Meeting-house in 1809, - - 466-7 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

I. 1554-1633. How this Church Came to Be. ... 1 

Events of the year 1633. — Some antecedents of these events. — 
Separatist movements in England. — Puritanism under James and 
Laud. — The settlement at Plymouth. — The Dorchester Adven- 
turers. — Planting of Salem, Charlestown, and Boston — Arrival 
of the Braintree company. 

II. 1586-1633. Thomas Hooker in. England and Hol- 

land 20 

Marfield, Hooker's birth-place. — Tilton parish church. — School at 
Market Bosworth. — Cambridge and Emmanuel College. — Events 
of Hooker's University years. — Rector at Esher. — Lectureships 
at Chelmsford. — Silenced by Laud. — School at Little Baddow. — 
Exile in Holland. — Ministerial service in Amsterdam, Delft, and 
Rotterdam. — Departure for America. 

III. 1 602-1 633. Stone, and the Gathering of the 

Church 46 

Hertford and Samuel Stone. — University and Divinity schooling. — 
Towcester Lectureship. — Association with Hooker. — Arrival at 
Newtown. — Gathering of the Church. — Induction of officers. — 
Pastor and Teacher. 

IV. 1 633-1 636. The Church at Newtown 66 

The Newtown settlement. — The Thursday Lecture. — Mr. Hooker 
and public affairs. — Uneasiness of Newtown settlers. — Argu- 
ments for and against removal. — Attempts to settle the question. 
Motives for change. — Pioneer sufferings. — Emigration to Con- 
necticut. 

V. 1636-1647. The Transplanted Church : Early Days. 86 

Arrival at Hartford. — Lay out of town. — Temporary, and more per- 
manent Meeting-House. — Pequot war. — Mr. Stone as Chaplain. 
— Mr. Hooker's Thanksgiving sermon. — Difficulties in Boston 



X CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

Church. — The Anne Hutchinson Synod. — Establishment of the 
Fundamental Laws. — Mr. Hooker's agency therein. — Presby- 
terianism in England. — Attempts to oppose it in New England. — 
The Cambridge Synod. — Death of Hooker. 

VI. 1629-1647. Thomas Hooker's Writings. ... 118 

Pastoral character of most of Mr. Hooker's works. — Introspective 
habit of religious thought. — Vivaciousness of the style. — Ex- 
amples : A clear sight of sin. — Why such a sight necessary. — 
Da?iger of self-deception. — Contentment to be denied mercy. — 
Union between the soul and sin. — God^s purpose sometimes only to 
civilize men. — But, sometimes, by holy violence to save. — Consola- 
tion of a good hope. — Wherto the Spirit witnesses. — A ground of 
cheerfulness — Common time of conversion. — A powerful minister. 
— Mr. Hooker's Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline. 

VII. 1653-1659. The Quarrel in Stone's Day. . . 146 

Efforts for a successor to Hooker. — Missionary endeavors for 
Indians. — Quarrel in the Church. — Probable occasion. — Stone's 
resignation. — Withdrawal of Elder Goodwin's party. — Council 
of Connecticut Elders. — Hearing before Elders of the Bay. — 
Apparent reconciliation. — Renewal of controversy. — Interfer- 
ence of General Court. — Vain effort for a council called by it. — 
Council at Boston and its findings. — Removal of Elder Goodwin 
to Hadley. — Pacification of affairs. — Witchcraft in Hartford. — 
Character and death of Stone. 

VIII. 1 660-1 679. Whiting and Haynes and the Division 

of the Church 182 

The two young Pastors. — Contest between them. — Part of general 
New England controversy. — Extent of Church membership by 
Baptism. — Assembly of Elders in 1657, — Half-way Covenant. — 
Petition of William Pitkin. — Effort of the General Court to force 
the new way on the Churches. — Division of Hartford Church. — 
Declaration of Second Church. — General concession of the 
Baptismal issue. — Death of Mr. Haynes. 

IX. 1679-1682. Isaac Foster and Early Church Usages. 212 

Early history of Mr. Foster. — Negotiations with him at Windsor. — 
Settlement, marriage and death at Hartford. — Gifts at this period 
to the Church. — Early church usages. — Order of worship. — 
Singing in the Hartford Church. — Dignifying the Meeting- 
House. — Boys. — The weekly lecture. — Funerals. — Marriages. 



CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

X. 1683-1732. Timothy Woodbridge and His Times. 238 

Mr. Woodbridge's antecedents. — Entrance on Hartford ministry. — 
Depressed condition of affairs. — Religious decline and political 
anxiety. — The Reforming Synod. — Revival in Hartford Church. 
— Working of the Half-way Covenant. — Woodbridge disabled 
in Boston. — His interest in Indian education. — Cooperation in 
founding the College. — Controversy about its location. — Estab- 
lishment of the Saybrook Ecclesiastical System. — Woodbridge's 
old age and death. 

XI. 1732-1747. Daniel Wadsworth and His Times. 275 

Mr. Wadsworth's settlement. — Question of a new Meeting-House. — 
Previous endeavors for one. — Mrs. Woodbridge's proposals. — 
Controversy as to location. — Final determination on burying- 
ground lot. — Building of church edifice. — Dedication sermon by 
Mr. Wadsworth. — Mr. Whitefield's progress through New Eng- 
land. — His preaching at Hartford. — His followers. — Rev. James 
Davenport and his trial. — Action concerning Whitefield by the 
Local and General Association. — The attitude of the Pastors on 
the question. — Mr. Wadsworth's sickness and death. 

XII. 1748-1772. Edward Dorr and His Times. . . 311 

Mr. Dorr's earlier history. — Negotiations for his settlement. — Condi- 
tion of things at his entrance on the pastorate. — War times. — 
Parish matters. — Efforts for Episcopacy in Connecticut. — Cor- 
respondence of the General Association and Presbyterian 
Synod. — Mr. Dorr's Election Sermon. — Mr. Dorr's decline and 
death. 

XIII. 1774-1816. Nathan Strong and His Days. . 333 

Rev. Joseph Howe. — Overtures to Mr. Strong. — Settlement of terms 
and ordination. — Financial embarrassments of the period. — 
Religious condition of affairs. — Mr. Strong's business ventures. 
— Signs of spiritual awakening. — Revivals. — Strong as preacher 
and writer. — Missionary efforts. — Parish fund and new Meeting- 
House. — The Conference House. — The " North Presbyterian 
Church." — The Hartford Association on Congregationalism. — 
Personal traits of Dr. Strong. — Endeavors to secure a colleague. 
— His death. 

XIV. 18 18-1867. J 0EL Ha wes and His Days. . . . 367 

Efforts for a successor to Dr. Strong. — Joel Hawes' first appearance, 
candidacy and ordination. — The new Pastor's energy.— Appoint- 
ment of a Prudential Committee. — Adoption of Articles of 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER. PAGE. 

Faith and Covenant. — Revivals in this pastorate. — Lectures to 
young men. — Dr. Hawes' writings. — His personal traits. — Society 
affairs. — Purchase of pews. — Organ and music. — Renovation of 
church edifice. — Settlement of Associate Pastor. — Dissolution 
of pastoral relations of Mr. Calkins and Dr. Hawes. — Dr. 
Hawes' old age and death. 

XV. 1864-1883. Notes of Later Days 403 

Settlement of Rev. George H. Gould. — Events of his pastorate. — 
Rev. Elias H. Richardson and his ministry. — His dismissal, 
removal and death. — Installation of a successor. — Payment of 
debt ; procurement of new organ. — Celebration of Two Hundred 
and Fiftieth Anniversary. — The future of the First Church. 

Officers of the Church. 

Pastors of the First Church in Hartford, 412 

Ruling Elder of First Church, 413 

Deacons of First Church, 413 

Prudential Committee • 415 

APPENDICES. 

Appendix I. Original Proprietors and Settlers, 419 

" II. Thomas Hooker's Will and Inventory, 422 

" III. Poems on the Death of Hooker, 426 

" IV. Notes of Mr. Hooker's Sermon, . 429 

" V. Thomas Hooker's Published Works, 435 

" VI. Poems on Mr. Stone, followed by his Will, .... 443 

" VII. Death of Samuel Stone, {second), 450 

VIII. Saybrook Articles, 452 

" IX. North Association Testimony against Whitefield, . . 456 

" X. Rev. Daniel Wadsworth's Library, 458 

" XI. Subscribers to Fund of 1802, 460 

" XII. Sale of Pews, and Ground Plan of House, .... 462 

" XIII. Articles of Faith and Covenant of 1822, 468 

" XIV. Subscribers to Repairs of 1852 471 

" XV. Subscribers to Payment of debt, 1879, 473 

" XVI. Description of New Organ, 1883, 475 

" XVII. Programme of Celebration Exercises, 1883, .... 478 



CHAPTER I 



HOW THIS CHURCH CAME TO BE. 

The year 1633 was a memorable year for its occurrences 
alike in Old England and in New. 

On the little strip of ground along the Atlantic border, 
where the New England settlements had a short time before 
got their first feeble footing, events took place which brought 
new encouragement to the heroic pioneers of civil and 
religious liberty who had left home to begin a new life on a 
new soil. Between February and October there had arrived 
at least nine vessels from England, with about seven hundred 
passengers and many cattle. In one of these vessels, the 
Griffin, after an eight weeks' voyage, came several men 
destined to take a large place in history. Among them was 
John Cotton, ordained a few days after teacher of the first 
church in Boston, having been aforetime a distinguished 
minister in old Boston, in Lincolnshire, and henceforth the 
chief expounder of religion and polity in the Massachusetts 
colony. Two others were Thomas Hooker and Samuel 
Stone, lately eminent Puritan Lecturers at Chelmsford and 
Towcester, respectively, and presently to join a waiting con- 
gregation at Newtown, as Pastor and Teacher of what is 
now known as the First Church of Christ in Hartford. 



2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1554-1633. 

Another of the same company was John Haynes, " a gentle- 
man of great estate," soon to be chosen governor of the 
colony of Massachusetts, but to be better known to us as 
one of the founders and long the governor of the colony of 
Connecticut. With these came about two hundred other 
passengers, many being " men of good estates." "They gat 
out of England with much difficulty, all places being belaid 
to have taken Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hooker, who had been 
long sought for to have been brought into the high com- 
mission " by command of bishop Laud. 1 

This same year, too, a new settlement had been effected 
at Agawam, now Ipswich ; and a plot on the part of certain 
enemies of the colony at home, for the revocation of the 
charter, having failed, the outlook of the young settlement 
seemed bright enough to justify the "day of publique 
thanksgiveing in regard of the many and extraordinary 
mercyes," which was ordered to be observed "through 
the severall plantacons." 2 In this year also some of the 
Plymouth colony people made a settlement at Windsor, 
and the Dutch bought land and built a fort at what is 
now Hartford in Connecticut. 

Across the water in old England, too, the year 1633 was 
one of important events having a direct bearing on the 
welfare of civil and religious liberty on both sides of the 
Atlantic. 

It was in this year that Wentworth was sent lord deputy 
to Ireland to make the rule of the King there, as he wrote to 
Laud, " as absolute as any prince's in the world." 3 It was 
this year that Charles attempted his invasion of the liberties 
of the Kirk of Scotland under the wing of the royal 



1 Winthrop's Jownal, i, 130. 

2 Mass. Col. Records, i, 109. 

3 Green's History of the English People, iii, 155. 



1554-1633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. 3 

supremacy. This year saw also the proclamation of the 
King ordering every minister to read the declaration in favor 
of Sunday afternoon pastimes ; for refusing to read which 
" contradiction of the command of God" many hundred 
" ministers were driven from their livings, excommunicated, 
and forced to leave the kingdom." 4 This was the year, too, 
when the plan of the Puritans for buying up some of the 
presentations to livings, thereby to secure in some measure 
the preservation to themselves of Puritan ministers in 
cases where the congregation were of this way of belief, was 
roughly put an end to by the citation of the feoffees into 
the Star Chamber and the confiscation of the purchase 
money. 

But above all else in its bearing on the hopes of those 
who had the welfare of the Puritan cause at heart, the chief 
event of 1633 was the advancement to the archbishopric of 
Canterbury of that most bitter and relentless enemy of 
further progress in the Reformation — Laud the bishop of 
London. In his narrower sphere as bishop of the metropoli- 
tan diocese, his influence had been potent for deprivation 
and misery to a multitude of the most godly men of the 
region in the vicinity of London, among whom were Cotton 
and Hooker who have been just mentioned. He was now to 
exercise his authority on a wider field, and with the recogni- 
tion of the fact thus forced upon them, the thoughts of still 
more of the worried pastors and flocks of the mother 
country turned to the new world as their only hope. 

These events of the year 1633, happening on either side 
of the Atlantic, were intimately connected with a long series 
of occurrences which had preceded them. To set them in 
their proper light it may be desirable to take a rapid glance 



4 Neal's History of the Puritans, i, 313. 



4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1554-1633. 

at a few of the more important incidents which may be 
accounted their natural progenitors. 

The rupture with the Roman Pontiff which had been 
effected for England by Henry VIII, and the declaration 
of the independent authority of the English church, were not 
to any great extent a religious revival or a doctrinal reforma- 
tion. The King assumed all ecclesiastical authority into his 
own control, confiscated the property of the monasteries, 
restricted the reading of the Bible in English, asserted his 
own supremacy over all the teaching of the clergy, and per- 
secuted with relentless vigor all who questioned his claims. 
The annals of his reign are hallowed by the story of many 
a heroic effort for liberty and truth, and by many a painful 
sacrifice in their behalf ; but when the corpulent old monarch 
was hoisted by his " engine " up stairs for the last time, and 
the ulcer finished at once his life and his iron rule, the 
retrospect was any thing but a pleasing one to the lover of 
Christian light and liberty. The Papacy had been simply 
transferred from Rome to Hampton or Whitehall. 

His son Edward VI, whose brief reign reaches only from 
1547 to the middle of 1553, was educated under tutors in 
sympathy with the Reformation. And being for the most 
part under the guidance of Regents, governing in his name 
because of his minority, who desired a better settlement of 
the doctrines of the church and a reform of its laws, the 
Protestant movement made considerable advance. Still the 
cause was hampered by the imperfect sympathy of many 
of the bishops, who were not unwilling to preserve the con- 
dition of things established by the late King, and who had, 
despite the nominal separation from Rome, more or less 
manifest desire for a better understanding with the Papal 
See. 



1554-1633-] H0W IT CAME TO BE. 5 

The refusal by bishop Hooper, in 1550, to be consecrated 
in the usual Romish vestments, marked the beginning of a 
controversy which was to give rise to the Separatist move- 
ment. But the revisal of the liturgy of the church under- 
taken in this reign gives what was, after all,, the true measure 
of the advance. This revisal amounted to little more than 
the translation of the Roman offices into English, and the 
omission of portions essentially offensive to Protestant 
ears, and the addition of responses to be voiced by the 
people, who had hitherto been simply spectators in public 
worship. The untimely death of Edward in the sixteenth 
year of his life and the seventh of his reign, put a period to 
the auspicious beginning which had been made. 

With the succession of Mary, the Church of England again 
became Romanist. The reforms of her brother were over- 
turned. The old laws against heresy were put in violent 
execution against all who advocated Reformation principles. 
Mary married Phillip II, and the English people were forced 
to see a Spaniard cooperating with an English Queen in 
restoring the practices of the Inquisition in the land. Bishops 
Hooper, Ridley, and Latimer, Mr. Rogers and many other 
learned and godly ministers, were burned at the stake. No less 
than two hundred and seventy-seven persons suffered death 
for their faith, among whom were five bishops, twenty-one 
ministers, fifty-five women, and four children. 5 These cruel- 
ties, together with minor persecutions innumerable, drove 
above eight hundred Protestant clergy and prominent laity 
into foreign lands. 6 Some of them went to Switzerland and 
some to Germany. 

Among those who went to Germany the controversy first 



5 Strype's Monuments, iii, 291, 

6 Neal, i, 58. 



6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1554-1633. 

made prominent by Hooper's scruples about ecclesiastical 
vestments was emphasized, and resulted in the party of Sep- 
aratism in English religious history. Some of the exiles 
wished to preserve the ritual of King Edward ; others desired 
to reform the polity and liturgy into accord with the Presby- 
terianism of the Genevan churches. Separatism is therefore 
commonly said to date from this year, 1554. The numbers, 
however, who desired separation from the Church of England 
were very few compared with those who only wanted a reform 
of the doctrine and practice of the church. And so when 
the accession of Elizabeth, in 1558, enabled the exiles to 
return to their home, the chief struggle of the reformers 
was a Puritan rather than a Separatist endeavor. 

Some distinctly Separatist movements there were in England 
about 1566 ; 7 and more important ones afterward there will be 
occasion shortly to notice ; but for the most part the desire of 
the great body of the devout clergy was for purer worship and 
discipline in the church and not for separation from it. 
Hence, because about 1564 many of the clergy refused to 
comply with the order of the bishops, enforced by the Queen, 
to subscribe to the ritual and laws the Queen had determined 
should be established, they were stigmatized as Puritans. And 
as the Puritans generally agreed with Calvin in matters of 
faith, a Puritan came to stand in the public eye as a man of 
strict morals, Calvinist in doctrine, and a non-conformist to 
the ritual and discipline of the church, though not separating 
from the church itself. 

The long and eventful reign of Elizabeth considered in its 
ecclesiastical aspect on the Protestant side of its affairs, was 
little but a protracted struggle between Puritanism, advocated 
by a growing body of devout ministers and laymen, and 



Neal, i, 104. 



1 554-I633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. 7 

aided by a considerable number of avowed Separatists on the 
one side, and Conformity backed by the government and the 
chief religious authorities of the land in church and state on 
the other. In this struggle the Queen showed herself the 
true daughter of her father. Her whole force of will and 
advantage of power were employed to crush out all opposition 
to the order of church administration she was pleased to pre- 
scribe. She established a new tribunal called the High Com- 
mission for the trial of all religious and ecclesiastical offences, 
not by a jury of twelve men hearing evidence according to 
the ordinary laws of legal procedure, but by a special board 
of commissioners of her own designation empowered to 
interrogate the accused at their pleasure. This High Com- 
mission proved a mighty instrument. Put into effective oper- 
ation by archbishop Whitgift, in the single first year of his 
administration, 1584, two hundred and thirty-three ministers 
were suspended in six counties of the Province of Canter- 
bury. 8 

Under the vigorous procedures of this body no less than a 
fourth part of the clergy of England were, at one time and 
another, under suspension, and this not on account of any 
moral misbehavior or neglect of duty, but on account of con- 
scientious scruples which forbade them to wear certain eccle- 
siastical vestments, for declining to baptize with the sign of 
the cross, disusing the ring in marriage, questioning the 
divine authority of the episcopate, and refusing to sign eccle- 
siastical rules imposed without authority of law. 

To people of the present comfortable time some of these 
particulars of objection to the established system perhaps 
seem insignificant. To the actors on that stage they were 
immensely important. The cross in baptism was the repre- 



Neal, i, 157. 



8 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1554-1633. 

sentative symbol of a whole world of superstitious ceremonies 
of which the Roman church has prescribed the observance. 
The surplice was the badge of that hierarchical separation 
of ministry and people which long ages of oppression had 
made so offensive and which the new-awakened sense of the 
brotherhood of all believers in Christ so discountenanced. 
The ring in marriage was the token of the Papal doctrine 
which made matrimony a Christian sacrament under the sole 
authority of the church. The bowing at the name of Jesus 
was a seeming impeachment of the reverence due equally to 
the Father and the Spirit. The observance of Saints' days 
reminded of ecclesiastical impositions which burdened life 
with their restrictions and laid a yoke on conscience too hard 
to bear. The rule of bishops associated with temporal digni- 
ties and authority, was a constant assertion of a claim to a 
supremacy of one soul over many souls which came not from 
the word of God, but from the devices of man. The objec- 
tion was based on no mere whimsy of sentiment. As in a 
time of national struggle a flag may be the symbol of princi- 
ples reaching into the deepest center of a people's life, and 
of memories which volumes would be all too scant to unfold, 
so in the place where the Puritan of Elizabeth's day stood, 
the ring, the cross, the surplice were signs of things of the 
utmost concern. 

And when it is remembered that these sentences of depri- 
vation and silence were directed, in almost all cases, against 
the most learned as well as most devout of the clergy of a 
church, in which it is estimated that at this time not one in 
six was capable of composing a sermon, some suggestion may 
be had of the wrong done, not alone to religion but to intel- 
ligence, by the rigorous demand of Elizabethan conformity. 

It has been said that the great body of the clergy who 



1554-1633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. g 

sympathized with reform in church affairs were Puritan 
rather than Separatist. This is undoubtedly true; but there 
were all along in the latter portions of this reign the earnest 
advocates of such a reform in church polity as meant only 
separation. In 1572, Thomas Cartwright, Margaret Profes- 
sor of Divinity at Cambridge, had preached practical Presby- 
terianism 3 and had secured the assent of many of the neigh- 
boring clergy. In 1580, Robert Browne became an object 
of governmental disquietude for his public preaching of 
separation from the church of England as the only hope of 
reform. He had a long and arduous struggle in the setting 
forth of his views, having been, as he tells us, in the process 
committed " to thirty-two prisons, in some of which he could 
not see his hand at noon-day." He was obliged at length to 
exile himself with some of his followers to Middleburg, in 
the Netherlands, where he established a congregation. It was 
from this pioneer in Independency that the advocates of sep- 
aration derived their nickname of Brownists. But however 
stigmatized or persecuted, Brownism grew and had its 
martyrs. In 1583, John Copping and Elias Thacker were 
executed for " dispersinge of Browne's bookes." John Green- 
wood and Henry Barrowe were hanged in 1593, for publish- 
ing opinions of the same kind. John Penry and William 
Dennis suffered the same fate. Nevertheless the same year 
which saw the execution of Greenwood and Barrowe, Sir 
Walter Raleigh said in the House of Commons, " I am 
afraid there is near twenty thousand Brownists in England." 
So strenuous, however, were the measures employed for their 
repression that at a later period of the Queen's reign Lord 
Bacon was enabled to write, " as for those we call Brownists, 
they are now, thank God, by the good remedies which have 
been used, suppressed, and worn out; so that there is 



I0 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 554-1633. 

scarce any news of them." 9 Some of their principal minis- 
ters withdrew to Holland and established there religious 
bodies, of which more will be heard hereafter. 

It was fondly hoped by those who had suffered under the 
repressive" administration of Elizabeth, that the accession of 
James, in 1603, would bring some relief. James had been 
educated a Presbyterian. He had written Calvinistic com- 
mentaries on the Scriptures. He had been the ostentatious 
champion of anti-prelatical views of the continental churches. 
He was a man of scholarship and was hoped to be a man of 
Puritan convictions. 

But the hopes awakened were doomed to early disappoint- 
ment. James was met on his journey up to London by a 
deputation bearing what is called the Millenary 10 Petition, 
praying "as faithful ministers of Christ and loyal subjects to 
his Majesty" for the redress of some abuses. 

The reforms were substantially those to which reference 
has before been made as those which the Puritans com- 
mon^ desired. 

As a response to this petition the King appointed a 
meeting at Hampton Court, ostensibly to confer with the 
representatives of the petitioners concerning the proposed 
reforms. The Conference was, however, only a farce. Nine 
bishops of the church and as many more of its higher 
dignitaries represented the old order of things, and, as it 
proved, represented also the King. For the Puritans only 
four ministers were allowed to appear. They were Dr. 
Raynolds, Dr. Sparks, Mr. Knewstubs, and Mr. Chaderton ; 
of the latter of which reverend gentlemen there will be 
occasion to speak again. The Conference lasted nominally 



9 Green, iii, 34. 

10 From the popularly supposed thousand of its signatures. There were in 
fact over eight hundred. 



1554-1633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. H 

three days. But it was throughout little more than a series 
of taunting enquiries and offensive lectures addressed to the 
Puritan representatives by the church party and the King. 
James interrupted them with the command to "awaie with 
their snyvelings," and ended with the declaration, "if this is 
all your party have to say, I will make them conform or I 
will harry them out of this land, or worse." 

The Puritans saw they had nothing to hope for from the 
King. He put himself into the hands of the ecclesiastics ; 
he practically renounced the Calvinistic sympathies which 
he had cherished in Scotland, and became identified with 
those who advocated Arminianism in doctrine and High 
Churchism in polity. The vain and obstinate prince, with 
considerable learning and shrewdness, was wholly unable to 
comprehend the temper of the English people over whom he 
was to rule. " Do I mak the judges ? Do I mak the bish- 
ops ? " was his childish exclamation of satisfaction as the 
prerogatives of his new empire were disclosed to him, "then, 
God's wauns, I mak what likes me, law and gospel." He 
more and more withdrew from the wisest advisors of his 
government, and put successive favorites like Carr and 
Villiers in their places. 

The court of the Presbyterian Scotsman became notorious 
for its profligacy. Peerages were sold to meet the need of 
an exchequer which an alienated house of Commons refused 
to replenish. Negotiations for a marriage of the Crown 
Prince were opened with the king of Spain. James dis- 
solved his last Parliament in 162 1, tearing from the journals 
of the house with his own hands the assertion of the " liber- 
erties of the subjects of England," which were inscribed on 
the pages, exclaiming : " I will govern according to the com- 
mon weal, but not according to the common will." He 



I2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 554-1633. 

imprisoned ten excellent ministers who dared to present a 
moderate petition for church reforms ; such petition being 
declared to be " fineable at discretion, and very near to trea- 
son and felony." 

Naturally discouraged by such a condition of affairs, some- 
time in 1608, the Separatist congregation at Scrooby, of 
which Richard Clifton was pastor, and John Robinson 
teacher, and William Brewster ruling elder, and William 
Bradford the most important lay member, succeeded in 
leaving England and took up a brief residence at Amster- 
dam, from which place they removed to Leyden. " 

From this Leyden church in 1620, a portion of the number 
impelled by the limitations of their condition in a foreign 
country and among people who spoke a different language, 
voyaged to America, landing on December 21st, at Plymouth, 
and setting up on the barren shore of this vast continent, 
the first New England church of God. Robinson did not 
come with them. He watched over those who remained on 
the soil of Holland and sent his counsels to those who 
departed to the new world till 1625, when he died. 

Meanwhile the Puritan struggle went on in England with 
small prospect of cheer. Charles I, succeeded his father in 
the same year Robinson died, 1625 ; a man of sweeter 
nature than James, but weak, bigoted, and insincere. He 
was a Stuart, and he married a beautiful but imperious and 
fanatical Catholic, Henrietta of France. The country was 
for generations to rue that unfortunate alliance. 

He summoned his first Parliament in 1625, but being 
annoyed by the caution of the Commons in voting supplies 
before they had some security for the better administration 
of government, he dissolved it even before his coronation. 



11 Dexter's Congregationalism in Literature^ p. 380. 



1554-1633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. i$ 

Forced by the exigencies of his treasury to call another in 
1626, he imprisoned Sir John Eliot who had spoken against 
Villiers,' the infamous favorite whom Charles had made 
duke of Buckingham, and dissolved Parliament again. He 
undertook to avoid the necessity of convening the obnoxious 
legislators by levying forced loans ; but overwhelmed by 
debt he was obliged, in 1628, to issue summons for Parlia- 
ment to meet again. 

When this Parliament assembled, the first question called 
up was that of religion. Memorable in all his history is the 
address of Sir John Eliot in declaring the primal place in all 
public as well as private affairs of religious truth and behav- 
ior. The Commons, in sympathy with the eloquent orator, 
refused to consider any question — not even of tonnage and 
poundage, the sore questions of the exchequer — till the 
religious grievance was discussed. The determination was 
met by dissolution once more. Henceforth for eleven years 
no Parliament was to assemble. The government of Eng- 
land was to be absolute monarchy. The chief leader of the 
opposition, Eliot, was imprisoned and kept incarcerated till, 
three years after, he died. Charles refused the request of 
his relatives to convey his relics to the family burial place. 
He lies, one of the martyrs for liberty, in the grave-yard of 
the Tower. 

William Laud, bishop of London, a sincere, but a narrow- 
minded and truculent ecclesiastic, was the King's chief ad- 
visor in religious affairs. He was a bitter hater of popular 
rights, and an almost undisguised lover of Papistic doctrines 
and ceremonies. The affairs of the High Commission court 
were entrusted to his hands, and his use of these powers was 
one of the things against which Parliament had complained 
to the King as "discouraging orthodox and painful ministers, 



I4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 554-1633. 

though conformable and peaceable in their behaviors." No 
bar now stood in the way of Laud's vigorous malignity. He 
harried the Puritan ministers of the diocese — the largest 
and most distinguished in the nation — without rest and 
without mercy. Thomas Shepard, afterward the saintly 
pastor at Cambridge in America, and son-in-law to Thomas 
Hooker, Pastor of the First Church in Hartford, gives a 
graphic account of his own citation before Laud in 1630. He 
says, 12 in speaking to him, Laud "looked as though blood 
would have gushed out of his face, and he did shake as if he 
had been haunted by an ague fit. . . . He fell then to threaten 
me, and withal to bitter railing, calling me all to naught, say- 
ing, 'You prating coxcomb, do you think all learning is in 
your brain? I charge you that you neither preach, read, 
marry, bury, or exercise any ministerial function in any part 
of my diocese ; for, if you do, I'll be upon your back, and fol- 
low you wherever you go, in any part of the kingdom, and so 
everlastingly disenable you.' " 

It is not strange that in this condition of affairs, alike civil 
and religious, the thought of many besides avowed Separatists 
should have been turned toward the new world as their only 
hopeful prospect. And it doubtless considerably increased this 
disposition and made it at once more intelligent and resolved, 
that Bradford and Winslow's Journals about the affairs of the 
emigrants to Plymouth had been published in London, 
respectively in 1622 and 1624, and had brought the condition 
of the new colony there to the popular attention. The 
seed was sown on prepared soil, for the Puritan, not much 
better than the Separatist, could see safety or indeed exis- 
tence in England. 



12 Shepard's Memoir of Himself in Young's Chronicles of Massachusetts, p. 
5 X 9- 



1 554-I633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. !$ 

Accordingly about the year 1622 a company of eminent 
persons under the advice of Rev. John White, " a famous 
preacher of Dorchester " in England, and " destined to be 
under God one of the chief founders of the Massachusetts 
Colony in New England," 13 and a clergyman of the Establish- 
ment, of great weight of character, had organized what is 
known as the " Dorchester Adventurers " association. They 
designed to make a settlement at Cape Ann, and carry on the 
fishing business ; conceiving " that the planting of the land 
might go on equally with fishing on the sea in that port of 
America." 14 

After one or two ineffectual efforts to carry out their pur- 
pose, a company under the lead of John Endicott finally set- 
tled down at " Naumkecke," now Salem (a place of hoped- 
for peace), in September, 1628. A year later the Dorchester 
Adventurers company being reorganized and much enlarged, 
a royal charter was obtained under the name of the " Gover- 
nor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New Eng- 
land." For fifty-five years this charter continued the funda- 
mental law of the Colony. 

The securing of this charter was like a trumpet call to the 
Puritans of England. They began at once to prepare for 
emigration to the new land of promise. In the spring of 1629 a 
fleet of five ships sailed from Gravesend for Salem with three 
hundred men and eighty women, " and a convenient propor- 
tion of rother-beasts," i. e. cattle. They had with them Rev. 
Samuel Skelton and Rev. Francis Higginson, under agree- 
ment for "preaching and catechising, as also in teaching the 
company: servants and children, as also the salvages and 
their children, whereby to further the main end of this plan- 



13 Hubbard's Narrative, Young's Chronicles, p. 25. 
u Ibid, p. 23. 



l6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1554-1633. 

tation, being by the assistance of Almighty God the conver- 
sion of the salvages." 15 Four weeks after their arrival in 
Salem these two ministers were set over the church gath- 
ered at the same time, July 20, 1629, as its pastor and 
teacher. 

The method of their appointment, and its significance as 
bearing on the question of ecclesiastical Separation, there will 
be occasion to notice in another connection. Suffice it here 
to say that the organization of the Salem church and the 
induction of its ministers is one of the memorial points of 
American ecclesiastical history. 

On the 30th day of May of this same year, 1629, sailed 
out of Plymouth in England, another vessel bringing " many 
godly families," among them some men to be afterward 
known in the annals of Connecticut, — as Mr. Ludlow, Capt. 
John Mason, and the Rev. John Warham. This company of 
godly people having " resolved to live together," took the pre- 
caution to confederate themselves into religious fellowship 
before sailing from England. " So they kept a solemn day of 
fasting in the new hospital at Plymouth, spending it in preach- 
ing and praying ; when that worthy man of God, Mr. John 
White of Dorchester, in Dorset, was present, and preached 
unto (them) the word of God in the fore part of the day ; and 
in the latter part of the day as the people did solemnly make 
choice of and call those godly ministers to be their officers; 
so also the Rev. Mr. Warham and Mr. Maverick did accept 
thereof, and expressed the same. So (they) came, by the 
good hand of the Lord, through the deeps comfortably, hav- 
ing preaching or expounding of the word of God every day 
for ten weeks together by (their) ministers." "' 



15 Higginson and Skelton's Agreement, Young's Mass., p. 21 
,,; Roger Clap's Diary, Young's Mass., p. 347-8. 



1554-1633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. iy 

This "godly company" first settled at what was called 
Blackstone's-Neck, soon changed to Dorchester, and in 1626 
removed with their pastor, Rev. Mr. Warham, to Windsor 
in Connecticut, becoming the nearest neighbor on the 
north of the First Church of Hartford. 

On August 26th, of the same eventful year, 1629, twelve 
gentlemen of eminence met at Cambridge in England and 
pledged themselves to embark with their families for the New 
Colony. They were led by John Winthrop. They sailed 
from England on the 7th of April, 1630, and reached Salem 
on the 1 2th of June. More than a thousand passengers fol- 
lowed before winter. A chief part of the new company pres- 
ently sought a better place of settlement than Salem, and 
fixed, awhile, upon Charlestown. 

On a day specifically set apart for the purpose, July 27, 
1630, "the Congregation kept a fast, and chose Mr. Wilson 
(our) teacher, and Mr. Nowell an elder, and Mr. Gager, 
and Mr. Aspinwall deacons. We used imposition of hands 
but with the protestation by all, that it was only as a sign 
of election and confirmation, not of any intent that Mr. 
Wilson should renounce his ministry he received in Eng- 
land." 37 

Soon after, finding the situation at Charlestown insalu- 
brious because of bad water supply, the larger portion of the 
people went across the river, and the church became what is 
now known as the First Church in Boston. 

Sometime in 1632 a considerable number of people, mostly 
from the County of Essex, and from the vicinity of the towns 
of Braintree, Colchester, and Chelmsford, arrived in New 
England, and began "to sit down at Mount Wallaston," in 
the township now known as Quincy. These were by "order 



17 Winthrop's Journal, i, 36-38. 
3 



x g THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 554-1633. 

of Court, removed to Newtown" under the date in Win- 
throp's Journal of August 14, 1632. The Governor in record- 
ing the events at the time, calls them by the double appella- 
tion of " The Braintree company," and " Mr. Hooker's com- 
pany." ] Mr. Hooker was then in Holland, and did not 
arrive for more than a year afterward. It would appear, 
therefore, that the company set down at Mt. Wallaston were 
from the time of their arrival known as a special companion- 
ship, and as having recognized relationship of expectancy to 
a minister not yet with them. 

These facts lend credibility to the statements of Mather 
and Holmes, which substantially agree in the representation 
given by the latter as follows : — "The recent settlers of New- 
town had while in England attended the ministry of the Rev- 
erend Thomas Hooker, who to escape fines and imprisonment 
for his non-conformity, had now fled into Holland. To enjoy 
the privilege of such a pastor they were willing to emigrate 
to any part of the world. No sooner, therefore, was he driven 
from there than they turned their eyes toward New England. 
They hoped that if comfortable settlements could be made in 
this part of America, they might obtain him for their pastor. 
Immediately after their settlement at Newtown " — Mather 
indicates, what was doubtless the fact, that negotiations 
begun before they left England — "they expressed their 
earnest desires to Mr. Hooker that he would come over 
into New England and take the pastoral charge of them. At 
their desire he left Holland, and having obtained Mr. Samuel 
Stone, a lecturer at Towcester, in Northamptonshire, as an 
assistant in the ministry, took his passage for America, and 
arrived at Boston September 4, 1633." " 

This brings the story back to the fact with which it com- 



)H Winthrop, pp. 104, 105. 

19 Coll. Mass. Hist. Soc, vii, 12. 



1554-1633-] HOW IT CAME TO BE. j 9 

menced. There will be ample occasion hereafter to trace 
what can be ascertained of the histories of Hooker and Stone 
up to this point of their debarkation from the Griffi?i ; as 
well as the nature of that ministerial relationship to the 
" company" called by Mr. Hooker's name. At present it 
suffices to rehearse the tradition that when Hooker met his 
waiting people at Newtown, it was with the apostolic saluta- 
tion : "Now I live if ye standfast in the Lord." 



CHAPTER II. 



THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND AND HOLLAND. 

Thomas Hooker was born at the hamlet of Marfield 1 in 
the County of Leicester, England, sometime, it is believed, 
in the year 1586. This little hamlet of Marfield is one of 
four tithings or towns which together make up the parish of 
Tilton, or " Tilton on the Hzl/," 2 as it was generally known ; 
the other three being Tilton, Halstead, and Whatborough. 
These four townships have for their common place of wor- 
ship the noble old church of St. Peter's, built sometime in 
the twelfth century on the corner of the Tilton precinct, and 
commanding a wide view over one of the most beautiful por- 
tions of midland England. 3 The parish of Tilton belonged 
to the Priory of Laund till the time of the suppression of 
the monastic establishments by Henry VIII, when the pat- 
ronage of the church was bestowed by the King on Thomas 



1 The name is variously spelled in the records of Leicester, Mardifeud, Mer- 
defeud, Mardefelde, Markfelde, Markfield, Marfield ; the last being the name it 
bears at present in the current use of dwellers there, and in the public directo- 
ries of the county. The place is in the Hundred of Goscote. Another Mark- 
field, in the Hundred of Sparkenhoe, in the same county, some eighteen miles 
away, has been the occasion of confusion to enquirers for the birth place of 
Thomas Hooker. 

2 " Tilton super montern " is the designation often appearing in the old 
records. 

3 The word "steeple-chase " is said to be of Leicester county origin, and to 
have been derived from the many spires surmounting the hill tops of this 
county, visible on every side, toward some one of which, in default of game, the 
disappointed hunters directed their chase; the first to gain which was accoun- 
ted victor, as if he had been " in at the death " of the fox or deer. From Tilton 
church many such steeple-tops can be counted. 



5 




JJk V' 






-^>S«^ffi 








BBs^*"— * - '' 




Pi 

1 






1 
i 




1, "*«•- 


■k 






'Wk 







1 586-1633.] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 21 

Cromwell. One wonders to see so beautiful and costly an 
edifice, with its embattled tower containing its peal of four 
bells, 4 and lofty spire, pierced by eight open windows, in so 
quiet and rural a spot. All the inhabitants of the parish 
would not half fill it. Nor, however, it might possibly 
have been at the period of its erection, was it probably any 
otherwise at the time of Thomas Hooker's birth. Twenty-two 
years before he was born, the little hamlet of Marfield con- 
tained six families. It now contains five. 5 The visitor to-day 
sees all things substantially the same as they were then. The 
grand old church of grey stone on the hill-top, surrounded by 
the graves of the rude forefathers of the various hamlets, each 
buried in the special quarter of the "acre" appropriated to 
his own of the four precincts of the parish ; the wide-stretch- 
ing prospect of wooded landscape, and open fields and spire- 
topped hills toward every compass point ; the small, thatch- 
covered village of Tilton hanging round the crown of the 
hill, 8 and the little hamlet of Marfield, embowered in trees 
down in a valley northward about a mile and a half away — 
the whole spectacle is probably not appreciably altered since 
Thomas Hooker looked upon it as a boy. 

The father of Thomas, himself of the same name, lived 
in Marfield before him, having, there appears to be evidence, 



4 The bells are ancient. One bears the inscription Praise the Lord-, the other 
three the following: I. H. S. Nazarenus . Rex . Ivdeorvm . Fili . Dei. Misere. 
Mei. 

5 In 1654, according to Parliamentary returns, Tilton had twenty-eight fami- 
lies ; Halsted, sixteen; Markfield, six; and Whatborough, one. In August 
1882 there were five houses standing at Marfield; the ruins of one other, with 
some old carved oaken beams, being discoverable. The Wars of the Roses did 
much to depopulate England two centuries before the period of the Parliament- 
ary return above referred to : but the wonder still remains in many parts of the 
country how such church.es could have been built amid so sparse a population 
as at any tim~ lived on the soil. 

6 The little tile-roofed Inn — the " Rose and Crown'''' — was once occupied 
by Cromwell, while his soldiers barracked in the church close by. 



22 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1586-1633. 

been brought here from Blaston in the same county, by 
reason of his connection in some capacity with the Digby 
family who were large landed proprietors in the parish, and 
who was a son of " Kenellyme " Hooker, obviously named for 
some Digby, in which family Kenelm was a frequent name. 

The records of Tilton parish previous to 1610 having 
perished, it is impossible to ascertain the date of our Thomas 
Hooker's birth or baptism. All that they furnish is the 
dates of the burial of his father and mother and of his elder 
and only brother, with whose death the family name entirely 
disappears from Tilton and Marfield history. 7 The Hooker 
family at this date seems to have been a family of some note, 
as the parish register and the records of the court of admin- 
istration speak of the father and brother respectively, as 
" Mr. Hooker," and " John Hooker, Gentleman ; " designa- 
tions which at that date were given only to persons of some 
social standing. 

Of the family influences which surrounded young Hooker 
in his boyhood there can be formed only a general impression. 



7 The Tilton parish records (examined by the writer in August, 1882) have 
the following entries, under their respective dates: April,. 1631, "Mrs. Hooker, 
wife to Mr. Hooker of Marefield was buryed ; " July 24, 1635, "Thomas 
Hooker of Marefield was burried ; " January 25, 1654, "Mr. John Hooker of 
Marfield were burryed." John Hooker's will dated January 1, 1654-5, proved 
at London, November 26, 1655, as the will of "John Hooker of Marfield, Co. 
Leicester, Gentleman," bequeaths to his " cousin Samuel Hooker, student in 
New England, ^100;" and to his "cousin John Hooker, student at Oxford, 
^200." These were obviously the children of Thomas his brother, then dead 
in Hartford, the first named of whom was then about to graduate at Harvard, 
and soon to be (in 1661) minister at Farmington ; the other was Thomas 
Hooker's oldest son, John ; of whom his dying father said in his will, July 7, 
1647, "However I doe not forbid my Sonne John from seeking and taking a 
wife in England, yet I doe forbid him from marrying and tarrying there." The 
young man, however, did "marry and tarry" there, and became a minister of 
the established church, rector of Lechamposted in Bucks, dying in 1684. The 
designation " cousin " used by the uncle in his reference to his nephews was 
not unfrequent as applied alike to nephews and nieces at that time. "Tybalt 
my cousin, O my brother's child." Romeo and Juliet, iii, 1. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 23 

Who his mother was is unknown. Little more is ascertaina- 
ble than that she lived to see her son become a preacher 
famous enough to attract crowds to the great church at 
Leicester, the county-town twelve miles away ; to be the 
object of special hatred by archbishop Laud, and of banish- 
ment from the kingdom. It is known also that besides the 
two sons, John and Thomas, she had also four daughters, 8 
one of whom married a "revolutionist by the name of 
Pymm " in Cromwell's day ; and another who married George 
Alcock afterward deacon of the church in Dorchester and 
subsequently of Roxbury, and who laid her bones in Ameri- 
can soil before her mother died, and before her brother was 
exiled. 9 

The family life may have been comfortable and happy in 
the little Marfield home ; but it must have been compar- 
atively narrow and limited. The chief points of interest then 
as now, outside the concerns of home and the labors by 
which home wants are provided for, must have been found 
in the church. The most prominent object which lifted 
itself before the young boy's eye, and containing many 
things suited to inspire even a duller imagination than his 
certainly was, it is not mere fancy to conjecture him some- 
times going thither, even at other than times of service, to 
look at matters which spoke of wider interests than Mar- 
field's grain- crops or family-tales. 

There was the quaint octagonal font, of ancient manufac- 



8 Frances, married Tarleton of London, mentioned in the will of her brother 
John; Dorothy, married John Chester of Blaby, Co. Leicester; and Mrs. 
Pymm and Mrs. Alcock. 

9 " So not caring to consult further for that time, they who had health to labor 
fell to building, wherein many were interrupted with sickness, and many died 
weekley, yea, almost daily. Amongst whom were . . . Mrs. Alcock, a sister 
of Mr. Hookers." Djcdlefs letter to the Countess of Lincoln concerning events 
of 1630. Young's Mass., p. 314. 



24 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

ture, at which had been baptized the generations of Tilton's 
parishioners by tonsured priests way back from near the days 
of Conquest. There were the monumental effigies of " Jehan 
de Digbie," and his wife ; he, a Crusader, lying cross-legged 
and hand on his half-drawn sword, at his feet a lion ; who 
died in 1269, and whose stone-likeness was laid here not 
long after, with the inscription asking prayers; 10 she, full- 
robed, large-molded, lying by his side, a lap-dog at her feet. 
There, too, was another of the same family of a later gener- 
ation, great-grandfather of a boy six years older than Thomas 
Hooker was, (which boy, Thomas might sometimes have 
seen at Tilton where so much of the family property lay,) 
great-grandfather, that is to say, of Sir Everard Digby of 
the gunpowder plot, executed at St. Paul's church-yard in 
1605-6. This old ancestor of the youth who was to attain so 
sinister an eminence lay there in coat of mail, hands on his 
breast, a fleur de lis on his shield ; having just before his 
death executed his will : " I bequeathe my soule to God all 
myghty, our blessed lady Seynt Mary and all the Seynts of 
heven ; my boddie to be buryed in the parishe church of 
Seynt Peter at Tilton, before the Ymage of the blessed 
Trinitie att our Lady authur." 

Other monuments and escutcheons beside, there were, 
also, to waken enquiry and to freshen fireside-legend and 
romantic tale. 

Who the Vicar of the parish was in Hooker's boyhood is 
probably learned only from a broken brass tablet in the 
church at Knossington, recording the burial place of " Thomas 
Bayle . . . sometime rector of Tilton ; " who, because it is 
known who came before and after him, may with consider- 
able likelihood be believed to have been the minister by whom 



Jehan de Digbie, gest icy ; praies pur lui. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 25 

he was baptized. Vicar Bayle was succeeded by Christopher 
Denne. Little is known of him, except that he was there 
in 16 10, and was probably a youngerly man as he had child- 
ren christened between then and 161 3, as shown by the 
parish records. 

But concerning another minister of the parish, in Hooker's 
early manhood and several years before his brother's burial 
in the Marfield grave-plot, there is quite definite intelligence. 
It is a sort of intelligence moreover which sheds a good deal 
of light, not only on the religious condition of that parish, 
but on that of the important county of Leicester, and the 
country generally. 

In the Minute-books of the Parliamentary Committee of 
Sequestration in the Bodleian Library it is recorded, under 
date of 1645-6, that "Thomas Silverwood minister to the 
Assembly is referred to the church of Tilton." An entry 
of a later date, 1647, explains matters : "Whereas the Vicar- 
age of the Parish of Tilton in the County of Leicester is, 
and standeth, sequestered by the Committee of Parliament 
from Dr. Manwaring 1! for his delinquency, it is ordered that 
the said Vicarage shall stand and be sequestrated to the use 
henceforth of Thomas Silverwood a godly and orthodox 
divine, and appointed to officiate said cure, by the said Com- 
mittee of Parliament." The nature of Dr. Manwaring's 
" delinquency " appears from the report of Parliamentary 
Survey of the churches in Leicester County, on which the 
action of the Parliament in " sequestrating " one minister 
" from " and another " to " the livings of the various Leicester 
parishes is based. 

That report divides the Leicester County ministers into 



11 John Manwaring, S. T. P., Prebendary of Weeford; installed 1 Oct. 1640, 
and Vicar of Tilton. LeN eve, Fasti Ecclesiae. 
4 



2 6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

" three sorts : " first, " Preachers," of whom there were one 
hundred and fifty-three ; second, " No Preachers," — by which 
is meant not parishes destitute of ministers, but " no preach- 
ing and dumb ministers," as those who either could or would 
only conduct service by the use of a liturgy were called — 
and of these there were seventy-six ; third, " scandalous of 
both the former sorts, and they are 32." 

The report further divides the first mentioned "sort" of 
ministers in Leicester, viz., " Preachers," into four classes : 
" Sufficient, 102 ; weak and unprofitable, 25 ; careless and 
negligent, 20 ; corrupt and unsound, 6." 

The particular incumbent of the Tilton Vicarage was set 
down as "no preacher, and a pluralitan." From which the 
inference is that the Tilton Vicar was an anti-Puritan or 
perhaps high prelatical man, who insisted on confining him- 
self to the liturgy of the church and declined to preach, and 
that he held some other living beside that of Tilton, also. 
That he was " Dr;' Manwaring 12 seems to imply that his 
"no preaching" depended rather upon his will than upon his 
ability, differing in this respect from a great many of the 
clergy of the day, who were too ignorant to write a sermon. 

By some influence or other, however, whether from his 
father, mother, Vicar Bayle, Denne, or any beside, young 
Hooker was put, at about thirteen or fourteen years of age 
probably, on getting an education. 

There can be no considerable doubt that the place of this 
training preparatory to the university was the school at 



12 Was this Dr. John Manwaring a relative of that Dr. Roger Manwaring 
chaplain to the King and afterward Bishop of St. Davis, whose sermons on 
the kingly prerogative threw the House of Commons into a ferment in 1627-8, 
and for which he apologized on his knees in June, 1628, before the House ? 
This prelatical but apologizing Dr. Manwaring was obviously a "preacher," but 
preached on what the Commons thought the wrong side. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 27 

Market Bosworth, established by Sir Wolstan Dixie, a 
wealthy Londoner having landed property at that place ; and 
which was founded in 1586, the same year Hooker was born. 13 
Market Bosworth lies about twenty-five miles distant from 
Marfield to the westward and close to the celebrated Bos- 
worth-field where Henry, Earl of Richmond, defeated and 
killed Richard III. 14 The rector of the Parish in which 
the school was situated and who was also one of the first 
appointed board of its "governors," was Rev. William Pel- 
sant, B. D. 15 His was undoubtedly the ministry, on the public 
exercises of which young Hooker attended during the three 
or four years of his membership in Market Bosworth school. 16 
What influence upon the boys, if any, these ministrations at 
Bosworth had, or what indeed was their quality in reference 
to the great Puritan and anti-Puritan conflict then in prog- 
ress, there seems to be no means of determining. 17 

It was probably while Hooker was at this school, about a 
year before his going to the university, that the great and 



13 Hooker afterwards had one of the two Fellowships at Emmanuel college 
founded by Sir Wolstan Dixie, the conditions of which demand that the incum- 
bent be either a relation of the founder or a graduate of Market Bosworth 
school. See statutes of Emmanuel college, and year books of the university. 
Burton says, quoted in NichoVs Leicester: " Sir Wolstan Dixie, knight, a wealthy 
citizen and mayor of London, built here [Market Bosworth] in 1 586, a fair, free- 
school of Ashler Stone, for Grammar scholars, and endowed it with ^20 lands 
by the year, and a very fair house of the same stone." 

14 The year of founding the school was marked by the discovery of a great 
quantity of the relics of that fatal battle fought just one hundred and one years 
previously. 

15 Mr. Pelsant died in 1634, having been rector of Market Bosworth " above 
50 years."" He was also Prebendary of Lincoln, stall of Liddington, inducted 
March 19, 1588-9. Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae, and NichoVs Leicester, vol. i, part 1. 

16 This school at Market Bosworth is the one of which, in 1732, Samuel John- 
son was sometime usher, and where for some reason, outward or inward, he 
seems to have had a very uncomfortable time. 

17 Sir W. Dixie's own position on these matters, as indicated by his relations 
to Emmanuel College, would imply that he at least was in sympathy with the 
Puritan cause, and that the school influence would be on that side. 



28 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1586-1633. 

termagant Queen Elizabeth died, and the uncouth and polemic 
James succeeded to the monarchy. 

Echoes of the stirring events connected with these public 
matters, must doubtless have reached Market Bosworth, 
and have been the subject of frequent converse among the 
bright boys there gathered. The story of the monarch's 
progress to London from Scotland, when the heads of Cam- 
bridge University colleges went out to Hinchinbrook to 
meet him in their robes of office, and to tender him their alle- 
giance, must have been well known at Bosworth ; as also the 
presentation to him of the millenary petition for church 
reform, hitherto spoken of ; 18 and the badgering of the Puri- 
tan ministers at Hampton Court ; and many another tale of 
King, Prelate, or Puritan, of that eventful year. 

But all these lively impressions of a great world around, 
and of great occurrences impending, must have been intensi- 
fied when Hooker left the grammar school for the university. 
He was now about eighteen years of age, an eager and 
impressionable time in the life of a young man of brains, and 
the Cambridge to which he went was the best place then in 
all England to stimulate and inspire to earnest though tful- 
ness. Cotton Mather says, 19 Hooker's parents "were neither 
unable or unwilling to bestow upon him a liberal education ; " 
which may be in part, at least, true, but he was matriculated 
Sizar of Queen's College 20 on the 27th of March, 1603-4, tne 
title signifying a certain inferiority of pecuniary resources. 
He was, however, before long, at some unascertainable date 
transferred from Queen's College to Emmanuel, at which he 



18 Ante, p. 10. 

19 Magnalia, vol. i, p. 303. Hartford ed., 1820. 

20 Ms. records of Queen's College, and letters of the librarians of that institu- 
tution and of Emmanuel. " Sizars formerly waited on other students at table." 
Ruber's English Universities, vol. ii, 202. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 29 

took his degree of A. B. in January, 1607-8, and A. M. in 
161 1. " He does not, however, appear to have been regu- 
larly admitted at this college except as a Fellow on Sir Wol- 
stan Dixie's foundation." 21 

Here, then, at Cambridge as a student for certainly seven 
years, and as a Fellow resident it seems probable some years 
more, Thomas Hooker was, during the period from eigh- 
teen to perhaps twenty-eight or thirty, or even thirty-two years 
of age, in the focus of Puritanism, and in the midst of some 
of the most considerable actors in the great events of the 
time. 

The university with which he was connected, the particu- 
lar college with which he was identified, the associates of his 
studies, the very atmosphere of the town, all conspired to 
bring a pressure to bear on every plastic soul which must 
have stamped indelible impressions, and given shape and 
determination to character. 

Cambridge University was representatively Puritan, 
strongly Calvinistic, and to some extent Presbyterian. 
Thomas Cartwright, thirty years before had preached and 
taught in the university the ecclesiastical polity of Geneva, 
and though he had been silenced and exiled, his leaven still 
wrought. The Calvinism of Cambridge was of the most pro- 
nounced description. The famous preacher, Rev. William Per- 
kins, who influenced the moral and intellectual convictions of 
so many of the students of the university, molding them to the 
view of religious truth set forth by the Genevan divine, died 
just as Hooker entered the college. 22 But Rev. John Preston, 



21 Ms. letter of Rev. J. B. Pearson, Librarian Emmanuel College, Nov. 1, 
1882. 

22 William Perkins, b. 1558, d. 1602-3. See as one instance of his influence, 
S. Clarke's life of Blackerby. " Lives of thirty-two English Divines" pp. 
57-58. 



30 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1586-1633. 

Perkins' disciple and spiritual successor, was in the vigor of his 
powers, preaching the same stalwart doctrine, and winning 
noble souls to its embrace. 23 The tone of things in the uni- 
versity in this respect is well illustrated in the Lambeth Articles 
• — beyond comparison the most vigorous Calvinistic sym- 
bol ever published as representing a phase of English faith — 
which was drawn by Dr. Whitaker, 24 and promulgated by the 
authority of the heads of the university, and archbishop 
Whitgift ; and which the scholars of the university "were 
strictly enjoined to conform their judgments unto, and not to 
vary from." 

But more even than the university generally, the particular 
college with which Hooker was identified, was regarded as the 
home and " mere nursery " of Puritanism. 

This college was established by Sir Walter Mildmay in 
1584 in the buildings of a dissolved monastery of Black 
Friars, with the consent and charter of Queen Elizabeth. 25 
From the first it was reported to be a college in the special 
interest of the Reformation party. 

Meeting Sir W. Mildmay soon after granting the charter, 
the Queen said to him, " Sir Walter, I hear you have erected 
a Puritan foundation." He replied, " No, madam, but I have 
set an acorn, which, when it become an oak, God alone 
knows what will be the fruit thereof." 



23 John Preston, b. 1587, d. 1628. Eminent preacher and author, and after 
Lawrence Chaderton, Master of Emmanuel College; called by Echard, "the 
most celebrated of the Puritans." See Thomas Shepard's reference to him in 
his autobiography. Young's Mass. Chronicles, pp. 506-510. 

24 Wm. Whitaker, b. 1547 ; Master St. John's College, Cambridge, 1586; d. 

1595- 

25 Sir W. Mildmay, a prominent statesman and counsellor of Elizabeth; 
employed in many high trusts, died May 31, 1589, and was buried in Great St. 
Bartholomew in London. As pertinent to the purposes of the present chroni- 
cle, as will be seen hereafter, it may be mentioned that he was one of the Gov- 
ernors of the Grammar School in Chelmsford, and in 1575 gave stone for com- 
pleting the tower of St. Mary's Church there. 



1 586-1633.] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 3! 

It must be confessed the fruit was largely of the variety 
the Queen suspected and disliked. During the Common- 
wealth, no less than eleven Masters of other colleges in 
Cambridge were graduates of Emmanuel, all more or less dis- 
tinct representatives of Puritan views. 23 

A single but very significant hint of the temper of things 
in Emmanuel remains visible to this day. Alone, of all the 
college chapels in Oxford or Cambridge, its original chapel — 
now indeed disused for this service, and turned into the 
library — stands north and south, instead of east and west. A 
report made to archbishop Laud of the condition of things 
at Emmanuel under date of September 23, 1633, doubtless 
gives a substantially correct account of matters, as they were 
only a short time before, in Hooker's college days. "In 
Emmanuel College," the reporter says, rt their chappel is not 
consecrate. At Surplice prayers they sing nothing but cer- 
tain riming Psalms of their own appointment, instead of 
y e Hymmes between y e Lessons. And at Lessons they read 
not after y e order appointed in y e Callender, but after another 
continued course of their own. All Service is there done and 
performed by the Minister alone. When they preach or Com- 
monplace they omit all service after y e first or second Lesson 
at y e furthest." 2r 

The Master of Emmanuel in Hooker's time was Lawrence 



26 Lazarus Seaman, Peterhouse ; Theop. Dillingham, Clare Hall ; William 
Dell, Caius; Benj. Whichcote, Kings ; Thos. Horton, Queen's; Wm. Spurs- 
tow, Catharine Hall ; John Worthington, Jesus ; Anthony Tuckney, St. John ; 
Ralph Cudworth, Christ; John Sadler, Magdalen; Thomas Hill, Trinity. 

Writing at a later date Carter, quoted in Cooper's History of Cambridge Uni- 
versity, says of Emmanuel : " It was generally considered as neither more nor 
less than a mere nursery of Puritans. So plentifully stocked with them was it 
during the Great Rebellion, that it sent out colonies for filling almost half the 
university." He adds, " But this leaven has been happily purged out a good 
while since." 

97 Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, vol. iii, 283. 



32 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD, [1586-1633. 

Chaderton, a "moderate" and learned divine who was one of 
the four ministers chosen to represent the Puritan cause at 
the Hampton Conference ; at which mock conference it is 
reported that he fell on his knees and entreated the railing 
King, that "the wearing of the Surplis and the vse of the 
Crosse in Baptisme, might not vrged vpo some honest, godly, 
and paineful ministers in some partes of Lancashire!'^ Chad- 
derton had been chosen by Sir Walter Mildmay himself, as 
the first Master of the college which he founded ; refusing to 
go on with the enterprise unless Chaderton would consent to 
take the office, which sufficiently indicates his standing on 
the Puritan question from the outset. 

And though he is spoken of as "moderate" he had fire 
enough in his bones to resign the mastership in favor of John 
Preston in 1622, when he was eighty-six years of age, "fear- 
ing that otherwise an Arminian successor might be chosen." 29 
Indeed the strenuousness of Emmanuel's Puritanism passed 
into proverb. 30 



28 W. Barlow. " The Summe and Substance of the Conference at Hampton 
Court," p. 99. 

29 Chaderton lived to be one hundred and three years old. He was one of 
the Translators of the King James' Bible, the section on which, with his imme- 
diate associates he was employed, being " from Chronicles to Canticles inclu- 
sive." Ackerman's Camh idge, ii, 237. 

30 The doggerel and ridiculing lines of the ballad of the " Mad Puritan" 
have all their significance from the recognized character of the college to which 

they refer : — 

" In the house of pure Emmanuel 
I had my education ; 
Where, my friends surmise, 
I dazzled my eyes 
With the light of Revelation. 

Boldly I preach, 

Hate a cross and a surplice ; 

Mitres, copes and rochets ; 

Come hear me pray 

Nine times a day, 

And fill your head with crotchets." 

Percy's English Ballads, 



1 586-1633.] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 33 

Those years while Hooker was at the university were 
marked by some public events which must have been felt at 
Cambridge quite as sensibly as anywhere. It was in his 
second year's residence, that the plot to blow up the King 
and the Houses of Parliament in the interest of the Catholic 
party, by Catesby, Digby, Guido Fawkes and others, was 
discovered just in time to have no worse consequences than 
the execution of the conspirators. It was just when Hooker 
was taking his degree of B. A., in 1608, that John Robinson 
and his Scrooby church, unable to find tolerance for Inde- 
pendency in England, went into exile, for conscience's sake, 
to Holland. Two years later, James, the whilom Presby- 
terian King of Scotland, forced Episcopacy again into the 
country north of the Tweed. 

It was just as Hooker was taking his degree of M. A., in 
161 1, that James inaugurated the protracted fight of the 
Stuart dynasty with the Commons of England, by dissolving 
his first Parliament. The years following, to 1620, saw the 
clouds of civil and religious trouble steadily deepening. 
They beheld the scandals of Somerset's elevation, of Over- 
bury's murder, of the sale of Peerages for absolute money 
payments, of the dismissal of Lord Coke, of the rise to 
supremacy of the ignorant but dangerous Buckingham. 
They saw the peremptory dissolution of James' second Par- 
liament, the negotiations for the marriage of Prince Charles 
with the Infanta of Spain, the execution of Sir Walter 
Raleigh, the outbreak in Europe of the " Thirty Years 
War"— a struggle virtually between Protestantism and Ro- 
manism — and last, and perhaps least noticed of all, the plant- 
ing of Plymouth colony by religious exiles from England. 

These things, and the matters involved in them, could not 
5 



34 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

have been other than of intense concern to the nearly three 
thousand students of the various colleges of the University. 

But to himself, an event which occurred apparently after 
his reception of his Masters degree and during his residence 
as Dixie Fellow, was to Hooker himself, of still greater 
moment. Whatever may hitherto have been his religious 
convictions or feelings, this was the period of his personal 
spiritual crisis and conversion. His perturbations and dis- 
tresses of soul seem to have been long continued and 
extreme. It is not without a touch of pathos that it is 
recorded that the Providential source of relief to him in 
this time of trouble, was "Mr. Ash the Sizer, who then 
waited upon him," whose "prudent and piteous carriage," 
and "discreet and proper compassions" were of "singular 
help." 30 

There seems to be evidence that after the passing of this 
crisis-point in Hooker's spiritual experience he fulfilled some 
duties in the College as a catechist and lecturer. Mather 
intimates that non-conformist scruples prevented his taking 
the degree of Bachelor in Divinity, for which it would seem 
that his long residence at Emmanuel certainly qualified him. 
It may possibly have been so, but such scruples did not 
prevent his assuming, at some uncertain date, but probably 
about 1620/ 1 the " donative" living of Esher in Surrey, a 



30 Magnalia, i, 303. Probably Rev. Simeon Ashe, a graduate of Emmanuel ; 
a Puritan minister first settled in Staffordshire: chaplain to the Earl of War- 
wick in the civil wars ; rector of St. Austin in London twenty years ; dying in 
1662. Calamy speaks of him as "a man of real sanctity, and a non-conformist 
of the old stamp." 

:jl Mr. Hooker's grandson, Samuel Shepard, was born October, 1641, — before 
which time Hooker was to settle in a parish and make the acquaintance of his 
wife, and his daughter to grow up and make the acquaintance of her husband. 
It hardly seems likely that he could have left Cambridge as the first step in all 
these events much after 1620. 



1586-1633.] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND 35 

small place sixteen miles from Westminster bridge. 1 - This 
living was certainly a scanty one, amounting to only ^40 a 
year. But the patron of the living. Mr. Francis Drake. 13 
by whose appointment he was inducted into the office, 
received the new rector into his house and " gave him diet 
and lodging," a fact attended with important consequences 
to Mr. Hooker. 

The persuasive cause of the procuring of Mr. Hooker's 
services at Esher by Mr. Drake was the condition of Mr. 
Drake's wife. The story is told in a little volume printed 
the year Mr. Hooker died.- Mrs. Drake was an invalid and 
a hypochondriac. She had already worn out the consolations 
of two worthy ministers, Rev. Mr. Dod 33 of Canons-Ashbv, 
and Dr. Usher, afterwards archbishop of Ireland, in their 
attempts to persuade her she had not committed the unpar- 
donable sin. They being obliged to leave, Mr. Drake heard 
of " Mr. Hooker, then at Cambridge, now in New England : 
a great Scholar, an acute Disputant, a strong learned, a wise 
modest man. every way rarely qualified : who being a Non- 
conformist in judgement, not willing to trouble himself with 



- A " donative " benefice is one given by a patron without the necessity of 
•' presentation " to the bishop, and of induction by the bishop's order ; for- 
malities which a presentative benefice involves. It would appear that Mr. 
Hooker's non-conformity had got so far along as to scruple the propriety of 
the bishop's authority in settling a minister over a congregation ; and, of course, 
far enough along to constitute an effectual bar to his entrance on far the greater 
number of benefices in England. 

^Francis Drake was kinsman of Sir Francis Drake the Navigator; was 
himself Gentleman of the Bedchamber to James I ; married Joanna Tothill. 
and died aged 50 years. 

34 " Trodden down Strength, by the God of Strength, or Mrs. Drak-. 
showing her strange and rare Case^ md manifold 

together. Related by her friend Hart On-hi. 1 6mo, London, 1647 

35 John Dod, known as Decalog Dod, from his Commentary on the Ten 
Commandments; a celebrated Puritan but L ine, born 1549; died 
1645, x - 96- "By nature a witty, by industry a learned, by godly 
divine.'" — Fuller. 



36 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

Preseutative Livings, was contented and persuaded by 
Mr. Dod to accept of that poor Living of 40/. per annum. . . 
This worthy man accepted of the place, having withall his 
dyet and lodging at Esher, Mr. Drake's house." 

Mr. Hooker's ministrations seem to have been useful, 
" For Mr. Hooker, being newly come from the University, 
had a new answering methode (though the same things) 
wherewith shee was marvellously delighted." It is further 
recorded that " by God's providence he was married unto her 
waiting-woman ; after which both of them, having lived 
some time after 36 with her, and he cal'd to be Lecturer at 
Chelmsford in Essex, they both left her." 

It is pleasant to know that Mr. Hooker's counsels, and those 
of Mr. Dod, which were again renewed, and those of Mr. 
Witherall, " a powerful, able, good man," who succeeded both, 
did much to help Mrs. Drake, and that she was " more cheer- 
ful in mind divers years," though not wholly happy. 

But the chief discoverable result to Mr. Hooker himself of 
this Esher experience was his meeting with Mrs. Drake's 
" waiting-woman," Susanna, and his marrying her. Who this 
lady was, whose future was to be so unexpected — who was 
to be exiled to Holland, to voyage the Atlantic, to be carried 
on a litter through the forests of Massachusetts to Con- 
necticut, and to be laid in some unknown spot in Hartford's 
bury ing-ground— -there seems to be no way of determining. 37 



m Mr. Drake's will, dated March 13, 1634, gave to "Johanna Hooker, whoe 
is now in New England, ^30 to be paid to her the day of her marriage." This 
was Mr. Hooker's daughter who married Thomas Shepard, and it is conjectured 
that she was Mr. Hooker's eldest child, was born at Esher, and named 
"Joanna" for Mrs. Drake. 

37 Perhaps the only recorded saying of this good woman is quoted in a letter 
from her husband about one of the alleged judgments which, in 1637, befell a 
near relative of poor Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, who was "infected with her here- 
sies." Mr. Hooker writes: "While 1 was thus musing, and thus writing, my 
study where I was writing, and the chamber where my wife was sitting, shook 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 37 

Esher's proximity to London favored the more ready 
recognition of Mr. Hooker's abilities, and it appears that he 
did for a while, after leaving there, preach in and about the 
city. Some ineffectual attempts were made to secure his 
settlement at Colchester in Essex, " whereto Mr. Hooker did 
very much incline," "but the Providence of God gave an 
obstruction" to that arrangement. 33 

But at sometime, it would appear in 1625 or 1626, an invi- 
tation was extended and accepted for Mr. Hooker's establish- 
ment as Lecturer in connection with the Church of St. 
Mary's at Chelmsford, Essex County, then under the charge of 
Rev. Dr. John Michaelson, rector of the parish. These 
Lectureships were an outgrowth of the Puritan movement, 
and were a device to gain a more efficient preaching service 
than could often be had from the legal incumbent of a bene- 
fice. They were generally supported by voluntary gifts of 
wealthy Puritans, though sometimes endowed by permanent 
funds, 39 and were customarily held by persons having scru- 
ples about the ceremonies, and consequently not always in 
priests' orders, who preached on market-days and Sunday 
afternoons, as supplemental to the regularly appointed church 
services. 



as we thought with an earthquake, by the space of half a quarter of an hour. 
We both perceived it, and presently went down. My maid in the kitchen 
observed the same. My wife said it was the devil that was displeased that we 
confer about this occasion." Magnalia, ii, 449. 

38 Magnalia y i, 304. Mather says Hooker's desire to be at Colchester was 
on account of its proximity to Dedham, where Rev. Mr. Rogers, whom he used 
to call ''the prince of all the preachers in England," resided ; but "it was an 
observation Mr. Hooker would sometimes afterwards use to his friends ' that the 
providence of God often diverted him from employment in such places as he 
himself desired, and still directed him to such places as he had no thoughts of.' " 

39 Sometimes also by high ecclesiastical personages. As one example of 
many: Lymaii Patrick, bishop of Ely, established a Sunday afternoon Lecture- 
ship at St. Clement's Church in Cambridge in 1591, allowing ^30 a year to the 
Lecturer. Laurence Chaderton, before he became Master of Emmanuel, was 
Lecturer on this foundation. 



38 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

The device was exceedingly popular with the multitude 
who were dissatisfied with " no preaching and dumb minis- 
ters," and grew into so large proportions as to be the subject 
of frequent notice and regulation by the civil and religious 
authorities. 40 The system was finally broken up by Laud 
about 1633, who hated the Lecturers and was accustomed to 
denounce them as the " most dangerous enemies of the 
State." 

Chelmsford is a pleasant town twenty-nine miles east from 
London. Its old Church of St. Mary's is a venerable Gothic 
structure of great antiquity. Its patronage was given or 
sold by Henry VIII to Roger Mildmay, ancestor of Sir 
Walter Mildmay, who founded Emmanuel College, and in 
1 575 gave stone for repairs of this church ; and twenty gen- 
erations of Mildmays sleep underneath its roof. This noble 
old sanctuary became for about three years the scene of Mr. 
Hooker's public labors. And there is ample evidence that 
those ministrations made a profound and wide impression. 
Auditors flocked to his preaching from great distances, "and 
some of great quality among the rest ;" chief of whom was 
the Earl of Warwick, who afterward sheltered and befriended 
his family, when Mr. Hooker was forced to flee the country. 
His labors resulted not only in the visible reformation of 
morals in Chelmsford, but in drawing together into fellow- 
ship in similar endeavors, a great many other ministers in 



40 JVeal, Part II, chap, iv, for various illustrations. 

41 The great tower and most of the older portions are built of the flint boul- 
ders, from the size of the fist upwards, found in the chalk pits of the neighbor- 
hood, laid in cement. The arch of the Norman door in the great tower has 
the Boar and Mullet of the De Vere family. In 1641 the Parliamentary visitation 
was the occasion of a mob, by which the beautiful glass windows of the edifice 
were destroyed, and Rev. Dr. Michaelson, the rector, subjected to violent 
personal indignities and injury. The roof of the church fell in, in 1800, and 
the repair in other stone has an unpleasing and incongruous appearance. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN ENGLAND. 39 

the surrounding country. That they attracted the attention 
and incurred the displeasure of Laud, the bishop of his dio- 
cese, goes also without saying. How likely they were to do 
so appears vividly set forth in a letter, under date of May 29, 
1629, written by Samuel Collins, vicar of Braintree to Duck, 
Laud's chancellor, and which obviously recognizes the com- 
mencement already of ecclesiastical procedures against him. 
Collins says : " Since my return from London I have spoken 
with Mr. Hooker, but I have small hope of prevailing with 
him ; all the favor he desires is that my Lord of London 
would not bring him into the High Commission Court, but 
permit him to depart quietly out of the diocese. All men's 
ears are now filled with y e obstreperous clamours of his fol- 
lowers against my Lord as a man endeavouring to suppress 
good preaching and advance Popery. ... If these 
jealousies be increased by a rigorous proceeding against him, 
y e country may prove very dangerous. If he be suspended, 
it is the resolution of his friends to settle his abode in Essex, 
and maintenance is promised him in plentifull manner for the 
fruition of his private conference, which hath already more 
impeached the peace of our Church, than his publique ministry. 
His genius will still haunt all the pulpits in y e country where 
any of his scholars may be admitted to preach. . . There 
be divers young ministers about us that spend their time in 
conference with him, and return home and preach what he 
hath brewed. Our people's pallats grow so out of tast, y l 
noe food contents them but of Mr. Hooker's dressing. I 
have lived in Essex to see many changes, and have seene the 
people idolizing many new ministers and lecturers, but this 
man surpasses them all for learning and some other consid- 
erable partes, and gains more and far greater followers than 
all before him. 4 ' 2 



42 J. W. Davids' Annals of Evangelical Nonconformity in Essex, pp. 150, 151. 



4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

Writing again on the 3d of June following, Collins says : 
" I pray God direct my Lord of London in this weighty 
business. This will prove a leading case, and the issue 
thereof will either much incourage or discourage the regular 
clergie. All men's tongues, eyes and ears in London, and 
all the counties about London are taken up with plotting, 
talking and expecting what will be the conclusion of Hook- 
er's business. It drowns the noise of the great question of 
Tonnage and Poundage."- 3 Both letters conclude with the 
advice to let Mr. Hooker get out of the way quietly. Ap- 
parently Mr. Hooker had already been to some extent pro- 
ceeded with. 

But in November, 1629, 44 he was still preaching at Chelms- 
ford, for on the 13th of that month a petition to Laud in 
behalf of " Mr. Thomas Hooker preacher at Chelmsford," 
signed by fifty-one Essex County ministers, was prepared, 
certifying that " we all esteeme and know the said Mr. 
Thomas Hooker to be for doctryne orthodox, and life and 
conversation honest, and for his disposition peacable," and 
entreating the "continuance and liberty of his paines there." - 5 

It must have been very shortly after, however, that he was 
forced to lay down his ministry there, which he did in the 
preaching of a farewell sermon, entitled the " Danger of 
Desertion," in which he bewailed the signs of God's depart- 
ure from England, and predicted greater calamities to come. 



43 Ibid, p. 152. This was doubtless a clerical view of the matter. But no 
more striking expression could have been used to indicate the interest in it. 
In March previous, Charles had dissolved his third Parliament on the 
" Tonnage and Poundage " issue, and commenced the eleven years' struggle 
of personal government without a Parliament and in defiance of law. 

44 On April 9, 1628, " Sarah, daughter of Mr. Thomas Hooker and Susan 
his wife," was baptized at Chelmsford. And on August 26, 1629, she was there 
buried. Chelmsford Parish Register. 

45 David's Annals, p. 153. 



1 586-1633.] THOMAS HOOKER IN HOLLAND. 4I 

Leaving Chelmsford he removed to Little Baddow/ 5 a 
small village four miles away, and "at the request of several 
emminent persons kept a school in his own hired house." 
Here he had in his employment, as assistant, John Eliot, to 
be celebrated afterward as the apostle to the Indians, and 
who was converted while living in his family. 47 His resi- 
dence at Little Baddow, however, could not have been long. 
Laud's vengeance followed him. 

At the "next Visitation," sometime in 1630, "he was cited 
to appear before the High Commission Court, and because 
he was then sick they obliged him to find sureties to be 
bound in a bond of ^50 for his appearance, but as soon as he 
was well, with the consent of his sureties he absconded and 
went to Holland, and they paid the ^50 into the Court." 48 
It was well, doubtless, that he fled. The terrible fate of 
Alexander Leighton, another nonconformist minister who was 
this year pilloried, whipped, branded, slit in the nostrils, and 
deprived by successive mutilation of his ears, might at least 
in part have been his.^ The officer arrived at the sea-side 
just too late for his arrest. 

The ship in which he sailed ran aground on the passage, 



46 Mr. Hooker had probably resided awhile at Great Baddow before perfect- 
ing his arrangements as Lecturer at Chelmsford, for the Parish register contains 
the following entry. "Anne, daughter of Mr. Thomas Hooker clerk, and 
Susan his wife, baptized at Great Baddow, Essex, January 5, 1626." 

*~<Magnalia, i, 305. Eliot says : " To this place was I called through the 
infinite riches of God's mercy in Christ Jesus to my poor soul ; for here the 
Lord said to my dead soul live ; and through the grace of Christ I do live, and 
shall live forever ! When I came to this blessed family, I then saw and never 
before, the power of godliness in its lively vigor and efficacy." 

48 The bond was given by Mr. Nash of Much Waltham, a tenant of the Earl 
of Warwick. The Earl meantime provided for Mr. Hooker's family " a court- 
eous and private recess at a place called Old Park." Magnalia, i, 307. 

49 " Bishop Laud pulled off his cap while the merciless sentence [on Leigh- 
ton] was pronouncing, and gave God thanks for it." Neal, vol. i, p. 302. 

6 



42 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

and was in " eminent hazard of wrack," but escaped that 
catastrophe arriving safely in Holland. 

Arrived in Holland, Mr. Hooker was for some uncertain 
period resident at Amsterdam, and negotiations looking to 
his association in the pastorate of the British Presbyterian 
church 50 then, under the charge of that somewhat "captious 
Puritan," 51 Rev. John Paget, 52 were begun. They were 
broken off, however, Mather intimates, by jealousy on Mr. 
Paget' s part. Mr. Paget, however, says he did not break 
them off, but that they were terminated by the Classis and 
the Synod, and that the ground of their action was Mr. 
Hooker's views, mainly about the propriety of fellowshiping 
Brownists and his refusing to censure such as "went to hear 
Brownists in their Schismatical Assembly." 53 By some in- 
fluence, or other it appears that the Synod resolved "That a 
person standing in such opinions as were shown unto the 
Classis, could not with any edification be admitted at the 
Ministry of the English Church at Amsterdam." 54 

Mr. Hooker thereupon took leave of the city and went to 
Delft. Here he became associated for " about the space of 
two years " with " Mr. Fords, an aged and holy Scotch minis- 



50 A vacated chapel of the Begyn Nuns was, early in the seventeenth cen- 
tury, assigned by the Burgomasters of Amsterdam to the British Presbyterians. 
In most respect its discipline conformed to the Dutch Reformed church. 

51 Fuller's Church History, Bk. xi, p. 51. His many controversies, with 
Ainsworth, Best, Hooker, Parker, Davenport, and others seem to justify the 
epithet. 

52 Mr. Paget preached his first sermon in this chapel, February 5, 1607. He 
was inducted into office, April 29th, and continued in the pastorate till 1636, 
dying in the pastorate. Mather speaks of him as an " old " man at the time of 
his connection with Mr. Hooker. Magnalia, vol. i, 307. See also Hanbury's 
Memorials, vol. i, pp. 540-541. 

53 Hanbury, \, p. 532. 
M Ibid, i, 532. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN HOLLAND. 43 

ter," pastor of the British church in that place. 55 Mather 
speaks with his usual effusiveness of classical illustration of 
the relationship existing during these two years between Mr. 
Forbes and Mr. Hooker, comparing them to " Basil and 
Nazianzen, one soul in two bodies;" but of positive incident 
records only the first preaching of Mr. Hooker at Delft, from 
the text : Phil, i, 29. "To you it is given not only to be- 
lieve but also to suffer." 56 

After about two years Mr. Hooker removed to Rotter- 
dam, 57 being invited to some kind of joint pastorate of the 
English congregation at that place under the care of the 
celebrated Dr. William Ames, one of the most eminent of 
Puritan divines. 58 

Here he united with Dr. Ames in the authorship of a 
volume entitled " A Fresh suit against Human Ceremonies 
in God's Worship," published in 1633 ; in view of which a 
remark made in addition to the main text of the " Fresh 
Suit" becomes significant of Hooker's position, viz.: 
" Ecclesiastical corruptions urged and obtruded are the 
proper occasion of Separation." 



55 Rev. John Forbes, born about 1870; originally a minister in Scotland, but 
exiled to Holland about 161 1. He became connected with the Delft congrega- 
tion apparently in 1621, and died about the year 1634, "after he had been 
removed from his charge at Delft by the jealous interference of the English 
Government." Stevens' History Scottish Church in Rotterdam, p. 294. 

56 Magnalia, i, 308. 

57 The British residents at Rotterdam formed themselves into a congregation 
under the charge of Mr. Hugh Peters in 1623. From the beginning down to 
1652, this church appears to have been strictly Congregational, at which time 
it became Presbyterian. Three and even four clergymen have at the same time 
been officially connected with this church. Stevens' Scottish Church, p. ^33- 

58 Wm. Ames, born 1576, died 1633, was a Cambridge scholar educated under 
Dr. Wm. Perkins. He wrote chiefly in Latin, and is better known on the Con- 
tinent by his Latinized name Amesius. He became pastor of the church in 
Rotterdam in '1632, which must 'have been about coincident with Hooker's 
association with him there. He had been previously professor of Divinity at 
Franeker. He sustained his new relationship onlv a few months. 



44 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 586-1633. 

Mr. Hooker's estimate of Dr. Ames was very high; but 
we are more interested in the statement that Dr. Ames was 
wont to say of Mr. Hooker, that " though he had been 
acquainted with many scholars of divers nations, yet he 
never met with Mr. Hooker's equal, either for preaching or 
disputing." 59 

But the state of things in Holland was unsatisfactory. 
Mr. Hooker wrote to John Cotton from Rotterdam : " The 
state of these provinces to my weak eyes seems wonderfully 
ticklish and miserable. For the better part, heart religion 
they content themselves with very forms, though much 
blemished ; but the power of Godliness, for aught I can see 
or hear, they know not ; and if it were thoroughly pressed, I 
fear least it will be fiercely opposed." 60 

Probably, before this, negotiations had already been opened 
with him to go to New England. It will be remembered 
that, as early as August, 1632, a company, called "Mr. 
Hooker's company," were already at Mt. Wallaston. And 
this letter of Mr. Hooker to Mr. Cotton may have been a 
part of the negotiations which, at some time, were under- 
taken to associate Cotton with Hooker in the joint pastorate 61 
of a New England company. But however, precisely, that 
may have been, sometime in 1633 Mr. Hooker crossed over 
from Holland to England, and, after a very narrow escape 
from arrest by the "pursivants," to which reference will here- 
after again be made, he, with Mr. Cotton, was got incognito 
upon board the Griffin at the Downs, and their identity con- 
cealed till they were well out at sea. 62 "Eight weeks" 



69 Magnalia, i, 308. 

60 Ibid. 

61 Magnalia, i, 393. 

62 Ibid, p. 309. The " Downs " — originally Dunes, or sand hills on the coast 
now used to designate the anchorage off Deal, inside Goodwin sands. 



1586-1633-] THOMAS HOOKER IN HOLLAND. 45 

brought them to New England, and brought Mr. Hooker 
and Mr. Stone to the congregation waiting for them at New- 
town, the place to which the Braintree company had been 
ordered to remove from their first place of setting down at 
Mt. Wallaston. 



CHAPTER III. 



STONE, AND THE GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 

In the ship with "Mr. Cotton and Mr. Hooker" came also 
" Mr. Stone." a 

Rev. Samuel Stone was born in Hertford, England. He 
was the son of John Stone, a freeholder of that place. 2 He 
was baptized in the Church of All Saints, July 30, 1602. 
He was consequently, at the time of his reaching New Eng- 
land, thirty-one years of age, and sixteen years younger than 
Mr. Hooker, his associate. 

The town of his birth is the county-town of the county 
bearing the same name, and is generally pronounced Har'ford. 

The name, now spelled Hertford, was formerly quite as 
often spelled Hartford, 3 and the Borough had, from before 



1 Winthrop, p. 129. 

2 In a " Survey of the Burrough of Hartford, in the Countie of Hertford, 
parcell off the lands and possessions off Charles, Prince of Wales. . . . taken 
in the yeare one thousand six hundred and twenty-one," made by John Norden, 
Deputy Surveyor, and certified to by John Stone and twelve other freeholders 
of the "Mannor of Hertford," John Stone's name as freeholder appears with 
ninety-two others. Cussan's Hertfordshire, ii, pp. 261, 262. 

3 The Parish Register of St. Andrews is inscribed on the cover, "Liber 
Parochialis Scti Andrea de Hartford, 1598." A monument in All Saints of 
1681 is erected to an inhabitant of " Hartford." The name appears often 
spelled in both ways in the same document, e. g. see previous note. And Rev. 
W. Wigram, Rector of St. Andrews, in a letter to the present writer, of date 
March 7, 1883, says: "The local Regiment of Militia is very scrupulous in 
insisting that they are of Hartfordshire." I wish here to acknowledge great 
indebtedness to Rev. Mr. Wigram for transcripts from All Saints' Register, and 
for numerous other interesting items of information. 



1602-1633-] STONE IN ENGLAND. 47 

the time of Elizabeth, the device of a hart crossing a ford for 
its coat of arms on its public seal. 4 

It is a clean, well-built place, on the river Lea, about 
twenty-five miles due north from London. It has two 
ancient parishes, All Saints and St. Andrews, which had for 
their rectors, during the childhood and youth of Stone, the 
first, Rev. Thomas Noble, and the second, Rev. Thomas 
Fielde. 5 

Very little is known of Samuel Stone's early years. The 
Register of All Saints' parish gives the baptism of nine of his 
brothers and sisters, between the years 1599 and 1629, 6 and 
the burial of four of them between 1601 and 1635." Several 
of Mr. Stone's children, born in new Hartford, were named 
for their uncles and aunts, whose birth or burial is recorded 
in the old Hartford register. 

We may reasonably conjecture the place of his education, 
preparatory to the university, to have been Hale's grammar 
school, in his native town. Richard Hale built and endowed 
a grammar school adjoining the church yard of All Saints, 
for the sons of the inhabitants of the town, in 161 7, when 
Master Samuel was about fifteen years old; and, as there 
was in the place no anterior existing school of any similar 
standing, it is probable that a part at least of his schooling 
was obtained there. 



4 Cussans Hertfordshire, ii, 47. 

6 Rev. Thomas Noble died in 1631, after a long incumbency of uncertain 
commencement. Rev. Thomas Fielde was vicar of St. Andrews from Dec. 11, 
1598, to Aug. 1623. 

6 Jeremyas, bap. Feb'y 18, 1599; Jerome, bap. Sep. 29, 1604; John, bap. July 
6, 1607; Mary, bap. Jan'y 13, 1609; Ezechiell, bap. Nov. 1, 1612; Lidda, bap. 
April 17, 1616; Elizabeth, bap. Oct. 21, 1621 ; Sara, bap. April 3, 1625; Eze- 
chyell, April 27, 1629. 

7 Jeremy, burried Jan'y 19, 1601; John, bur. Oct. 8, 1609; Ezechiell, bur. 
Aprill 27, 1629; Lidae, bur. Aug. 10, 1635. 



48 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

April 19, 1620, found him matriculated pensioner at 
Emmanuel College, the " mere nursery " of Puritanism. 
Lawrence Chaderton, who had been head of the college in 
Hooker's day, was still there, but before Stone took his degree 
of B. A., in 1624, 8 had retired in favor of the celebrated John 
Preston, and to prevent the calamity of " an Arminian suc- 
cessor." The influences which molded Stone's college life 
were, therefore, essentially those which affected that of his 
predecessor, Hooker. The struggle between Puritanism and 
Ecclesiasticism was, however, all the while intensifying. 

His first year in the university saw the departure of the 
Pilgrims for Plymouth. The next year after, saw the dis- 
solution of James' second Parliament, — the leaves of its 
journals torn out by the King's own hand. The year before 
Stone took his B. A. degree, Prince Charles quitted England 
in disguise, and appeared at Madrid to claim the Infanta as 
the future British Queen. Midway between Stone's B. A. 
and M. A. degrees, James died, Charles succeeded to the 
throne, married Henrietta Maria, took Laud to be his most 
intimate advisor in ecclesiastical affairs, and dissolved his 
first Parliament, even before he was crowned. The year 
1627, which marked the formal completion of Stone's course 
at the university, and his probable departure from Cam- 
bridge, beheld the levy of a forced loan by the King, the 
degradation of Chief Justice Crewe, who refused to acknowl- 
edge the legality of that transaction, and the disastrous issue 
of the siege of Rochelle. 

These were important matters crowded into the brief 
years of a college course, and must have left impressions as 



8 Ms. record of Emmanuel College. Mr. Alfred Rose, in behalf of the Libra- 
rian writes, April 15, 1883 : "Mr. Stone took his first degree somewhat later 
than usual, as, under ordinary circumstances, he might have been expected to 
proceed to his first degree after three complete years from his entry." 



1602-1633.] STONE IN ENGLAND. 49 

lasting as any thing derived from the curriculum of the uni- 
versity. 

Our next glimpse of Stone is as a student of a theological 
class in a very peculiar and interesting school. 

The Rev. Richard Blackerby, 9 a graduate of Trinity 
College, Cambridge, and an eminent scholar and divine, "not 
being capable of a benefice because he could not subscribe," 
established a school at Aspen in Essex County, where amid 
a good deal of harrassment, he boarded and educated divinity 
students for twenty-three years. " Divers young students, 
after they came from the university, betook themselves unto 
him to prepare for the Ministry, and many eminent persons 
proceeded from this Gamaliel." Mr. Stone was among 
their number. 

How long a time Mr. Stone continued under the instruc- 
tions of Mr. Blackerby is uncertain. The next event of his his- 
tory which can be recovered, is his going to Towcester, a mar- 
ket town of Northamptonshire, as a Puritan Lecturer. 11 He 
went thither in 1630 by the commendation of Thomas Shep- 
ard, some years afterward the son-in-law of Thomas Hooker, 
and pastor of the church w T hich succeeded Mr. Hooker's at 
Newtown. Shepard had himself been invited to the Tow- 
cester lectureship, the place being in the immediate vicinity 



9 Born 1572, Cambridge 1589, died 1648. While at Cambridge he was awak- 
ened by the preaching of "the famous Mr. Perkins," but was several years in 
distress of mind. At length, intending to return to Cambridge and lay his case 
open to Mr. Perkins, as he was " riding over New Market Heath, the Lord 
revealed himself." Clarke's Lives of Eminent Persons, (1783,) p. 57. 

10 "If he was suspended in one county, he would go and preach in another, 
for his Habitation was near two or three several Counties." He was "almost 
constantly at Lectures in some neighboring town," or statedly preaching "for at 
least ten years at Stoke by Clare or Hunden, in Suffolk." " He kept three 
Diaries of his Life, one in Greek, another in Latin, and a third in English" 
Clark's Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons, pp. 58, 59, 63. 

11 SheparcTs Autobiography, Young 's Mass. Chronicles, 518. 

7 



^o THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

of his home. His commendation of Mr. Stone to the place 
he could not himself occupy, was not based on any new 
acquaintance. Eight years before, when Stone and Shepard 
were at Emmanuel together, Stone, being the elder by about 
four years, was his advisor in a matter of great concern to 
him, commending him to the " spiritual and excellent preach- 
ing of Dr. Preston. 12 And Shepard records that Mr. Stone 
"went to Towcester with the Lecture, where the Lord was 
with him. And thus I saw the Lord's mercy following me to 
make me a poor instrument of sending the Gospel to the 
place of my nativity." 13 

It was during tne occupancy of this Towcester Lecture- 
ship, which post he must have filled for about three years, 
that Mr. Stone was invited, "by the judicious Christians that 
were coming to New England with Mr. Hooker" to be "an 
assistant unto Mr. JHooker, with something of a disciple 
also." 14 

It appears that negotiations for associating Mr. Hooker 
and Mr. Cotton had previously been made and had failed, and 
the conclusion having been arrived at that, "a couple of 
such great men might be more serviceable asunder than 
together" the "judicious Christians" turned to younger men. 
Three were proposed — " Mr. Shepard, Mr. Norton, and Mr. 
Stone, then a lecturer at Towcester ;" the last of whom " was 
the person upon whom it at length fell, to accompany Mr. 
Hooker into America." 15 

One final incident of Mr. Stone's experience in England, 
remains in the quaint and pedantic narrative of Mather, which 
shows him to have been, as he always has had the credit 



12 Ibid, p. 506. 

18 Ibid, p. 518. The pecuniary value of the Lectureship was £^0 per annum. 

u Magnalia, i, 393. 

15 Ibid. 



1602-1633.] STONE IN ENGLAND. ^ 

of being, a man of ready wits. The incident took place 
after Mr. Hooker had come over from Holland to England on 
his way to America, and, though the fact is not stated, very 
probably at Mr. Stone's family home in Hertford. It may 
be rehearsed in the language of the Magnalia : " Return- 
ing into England in order to a further voyage he (Mr. Hooker) 
was quickly scented by the pursevants ; who at length got so 
far up with him as to knock at the door of that very chamber 
where he was now discoursing with Mr. Stone ; who was now 
become his designed companion and assistant for the New 
English enterprise. Mr. Stone was at that instant smoking 
of tobacco ; for which Mr. Hooker had been reproving him, 
as being then used by few persons of sobriety ; being also 
of a sudden and pleasant wit, he stept unto the door, with his 
pipe in his mouth, and such an air of speech and look as gave 
him some credit with the officer. 

"The officer demanded, 'Whether Mr. Hooker zvere not 
there V Mr. Stone replied with a braving sort of confidence, 
1 What Hooker ? Do yon mea?i Hooker that lived once at 
Chelmsford?' The officer answerd, 'Yes, he /' Mr. Stone 
immediately, with a diversion like that which once helped 
Athanasius, made this true answer, 'If it be he you look for, 
I saw him about an hour ago at such an house in the town ; 
you had better hasten thither after him! 

"The officer took this for a sufficient account, and went his 
way ; but Mr. Hooker, upon this intimation, concealed him- 
self more carefully and securely, till he went on board at the 
Downs, in the year 1633, the ship which bVought him and Mr. 
Cotton, and Mr. Stone to New England ; where none but Mr. 
Stone was owned for a preacher at their first coming aboard, 
the other two delaying to take their turns in the publick 
worship of the ship, till they were got so far into the main 



52 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

ocean that they might with safety discover who they 
were." 16 

The monotony of the voyage of eight weeks duration was 
doubtless diversified, as in the case of the Windsor and Salem 
companies which came before, by one or two sermons or 
expositions daily, and by the special incident of the birth 
of an infant child of Rev. Mr. Cotton ; the withholding of the 
rite of baptism from which poor child till land was reached, 
and a new church-membership established, is a significant in- 
dication of the quite pronounced type of Congregationalism 
which prevailed among the Griffin's ship company. 

Having reached harbor, Mr. and Mrs. Cotton were on the 
following Sunday "propounded to be admitted" members of 
the Boston church. The Sunday after that, they were ad- 
mitted. And then the child was presented by the father 
and baptized " Seaborn," by Mr. Wilson, pastor of the church ; 
Mr. Cotton explaining that the reason why the child had not 
been baptized by him at sea, was "not for want of fresh 
water, for he held sea-water would have served," but " 1, 
because they had no settled congregation there ; 2, because 
a minister hath no power to give the seals but in his own 
congregation." 17 

This is very vigorous Congregationalism certainly. Cotton, 
Hooker, and Stone, had manifestly thrown over a large cargo 
of ecclesiastical doctrines in which they had been educated. 
The query naturally arises whether they had not parted with 
rather more than reason or time justifies ? The fact may be 
noted, however, as having its bearing on the next matter 
to be considered — the gathering of the Church at Newtown 
and the ordination of its ministers. 



16 Magnalia, p. 309. 

17 Winthrop, p. 131. 



1602-1633] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 53 

Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone arrived in Boston, September 
4, 1633. They apparently went at once to Newtown, and on 
the nth of October following, in connection with a "fast," 
were chosen Pastor and Teacher. 

The absence of any reference in Winthrop's account of 
the establishment of this ministerial relationship to any for- 
mation of a church at the same time, would of itself make 
it probable that the Church had already at some uncertain 
date previously been "gathered." 18 And this probability is 
enhanced by other considerations. It will be remembered 
that fourteen months previous, August 14, 1632, the com- 
pany of people known as "Mr. Hooker's company" had 
been ordered by the Court to remove from Mount Wallaston 
to Newtown. 19 And there is evidence that during this year 
1632, a " house for public worship" was built at Newtown, 
with the then very unusual appointment of "a bell upon 
it." 20 Add to this, the statement of Hubbard, writing before 
1682, when many still lived who must have been cognizant 
of the facts, that Mr. Hooker was "ordained pastor of the 
church at New-Town, which had all that time continued 
without a particular minister of their own," 21 and the proba- 
bility becomes about a certainty that when Hooker and Stone 
arrived, the Newtown people had been already, and perhaps 
for a considerable time, " gathered " into a church estate. 

But at whatsoever time this gathering took place there 
can be little doubt as to the manner of it. 



™ibid, v . 137. 

19 Ibid, pp. 104-105. 



20 Prince's Annals, ii, 75. The statements of Prince, both as to church and 
bell, is confirmed by an agreement made December 24, 1632, that "every per- 
son under subscribed shall meet every first Monday in every month, within the 
meeting-house in the afternoon, within half an hour after the ringing of the 
bell." Paige's Cambridge, p. 247. 

21 Hubbard, p. 189. 



5 4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 602-1 633. 

The Braintree company, no more than most of the other 
Massachusetts Bay companies, was avowedly Separatist 
It was Puritan. Its members had probably every one been 
members of the established church of England. They 
probably none of them, while in their own land, had stood in 
a position of declared Separation from it. But three thou- 
sand miles of watery distance, and plantation in a virgin 
wilderness, were great realities which could not be forgotten 
when then the fashioning of new ecclesiastical institutions 
was forced upon them. Hence, when the new settlers of 
Massachusetts Bay came to the formation of their churches, 
they did, as a matter of fact, fall into the " Brownist " theory 
of the competency of every congregation of believers to 
constitute its own church-estate. Indeed, in the very first 
instance of the constitution of such a church within the 
precincts of the Massachusetts province — that at Salem in 
1629 — the direct influence of the avowedly Separatist and 
Independent church of Plymouth is distinctly recognized. 
And as that case was a kind of model for others, and proba- 
bly for this Church of Newtown among them, it may be well 
to look at it a little more definitely. 

The company at Salem under Endicott in 1629, previous 
to the arrival of Mr. Skelton and Mr. Higginson, who were 
subsequently set over them as pastor and teacher, were 
obliged on account of sickness to send to Plymouth for the 
assistance of Doctor Samuel Fuller, who was also a Deacon 
of the Plymouth church. 22 When the Deacon-Doctor arrived 
at Salem he held sundry conferences with Endicott, not 
only on matters medical but matters ecclesiastical as well. 

The result of these conferences was a removal from Endi- 



n Samuel Fuller was one of the Mayflower passengers. He had been dea- 
con of the church in Leyden. He died in 1633. 



1602-1633.] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 55 

cott's mind of his prejudices against the Plymouth theory 
of the church, so much as to induce Endicott to write to 
Governor Bradford of Plymouth, under date of May 11, 
1629, " I acknowledge myself much bound to you for your 
kind love and care in sending Mr. Fuller among us, and 
rejoyce much y 1 I am by him satisfied touching your judg- 
ments of y e outward forms of God's worship." 23 And when, 
in July following, the two ministers arrived, and the business 
of settling the ecclesiastical foundation was entered on, 
" notice was given of their intended proceedings to the church 
at New Plymouth, that so they might have their approbation 
and concurrence, if not their direction and assistance, in a 
matter of that nature wherein they had been but little before 
exercised." 24 As a result of all which considerations and 
conferences, on the 6th of August, 1629, the Salem com- 
pany constituted themselves into a church, by "setting apart 
a day for Fasting and Prayer, for the settling of a Church- 
State among them and making a Confession of their Faith, 
and entering into an holy Covenant whereby that Church- 
State was formed." 25 



2S Bradford's History Plymouth Plantation, p. 264, 5. 

21 Hubbard's Gen. Hist., New England, 2 Mass. Historical Coll., v, 119. 

25 Magnalia, i, 66. Winthrop gives account (i, 214) of the formation of the 
church at Newtown, February 1, 1636, which took the place of the First, which 
removed to Hartford. The question was raised " what number were needful 
to make a church and how they ought to proceed in this action ? " Whereupon 
"some of the ancient ministers gave answer: That the Scripture did not set 
down any certain rule for the number. Three (they thought) were too few, 
because by Matt, xviii, an appeal was allowed from three ; but that seven might 
be a fit number. And, for their proceeding, they advised that such as were to 
join should make confession of their faith, and declare what work of grace the 
Lord had wrought in them ; which accordingly they did, Mr. Shepherd first, 
then four others, then the elder, and one who was to be deacon (who had also 
prayed) and another member. Then the covenant was read, and they all gave 
a solemn assent to it. Then the elder desired of the churches, that, if they 
did approve them to be a church, they would give them the right hand of fellow- 
ship." 



56 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

Thirty persons signed that Covenant, drawn up by Mr. 
Higginson, and then, being in their view of the case a fully 
constituted church with all power under Christ to do what- 
ever it pertains to a church to do, proceeded to ordain Mr. 
Skelton and Mr. Higginson as pastor and teacher, notwith- 
standing both had been regularly ordained ministers in Eng- 
land. And this may be said to have been the general order 
of procedure among the early churches of New England 
both with respect to the constitution of a church and the 
institution of its officers. 25 



2i Lechford, writing about 1641, gives this general account of the method of 
organizing the New England churches : " A church is gathered there after this 
manner : A convenient or competent number of Christians, allowed by the 
general Court to plant together, at a day prefixed come together in publique 
manner, in some fit place, and there confesse their sins and professe their faith 
one unto another ; and being satisfied of one another's faith and repentance, 
they solemnly enter into a Covenant with God, and one another (which is 
called their Church Covenant, and held by them to constitute a church) to this 
effect, viz. : To forsake the Devill and all his works, and the vanities of the 
sinful world, and all their former lusts and corruptions they have lived and 
walked in, and to cleave unto and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, as their onely 
King and Lawgiver, their only Priest and Prophet, and to walke together with 
that Church, in the unity of the faith, and brotherly love, and to submit them- 
selves one unto another, in all the ordinances of Christ, to mutuall edification 
and comfort, to watch over and support one another. Whereby they are called 
the Church of such a place, which before they say were no church, nor of any 
church except the invisible : After this, they doe at the same time or some 
other, all being together, elect their own officers, as Pastor, Teacher, Elders, 
Deacons, if they have fit men enough to supply those places : else as many of 
them as they can be provided of. Then they set another day for the ordination 
of their said officers, and appoint some of themselves to impose hands upon 
their officers which is done in a publique day of fasting and prayer. When 
there are Ministers, or Elders, before, they impose their hands on the new offi- 
cers but when there is none, then some of their chiefest men, two or three of 
good report amongst them though not of the Ministry, doe, by appointment of 
the said church, lay hands upon them." Plaiiie Dealing, p. 12, 13. 

There were different degrees of sensitiveness and somewhat different views 
about the validity of former Episcopal ordination among the early New Eng- 
land Ministers. When Rev. John Wilson was made teacher of the church of 
Charlestown, February 27, 1630, by the "imposition of hands" of some of the 
church members, it was " with this protestation by all that it was only a sign of 
election and confirmation, not of any intent that Mr. Wilson should renounce 



1602-1633.] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH, j 57 

At some time or other, then, and it may have been well 
nigh a year before Mr. Hooker's and Mr. Stone's arrival, a 
church was gathered at Newtown, doubtless by the signature 
of a solemn mutual compact and covenant, on a day set apart 
for fasting and prayer, by which visible document of agree- 
ment and sacred confederation the signers thereof regarded 
themselves as made into a Church of Christ, having all 
necessary powers of admission, discipline, exclusion, choice 
of officers, and ordination of them to their respective duties. 

What, precisely, the words of this Covenant were, there is 
no possibility of determining ; the fatality which has over- 
taken the entire documentary records of the First Church 
of Hartford for the first fifty-two years of its existence, 
having fallen upon this its first document also. 26 

But the phraseology will be in all probability fairly enough 
indicated by the language of the covenant of the First 
Church of Boston, its nearest neighbor, which was formed 
July 30, 1630, possibly three years, but probably not more 



his ministry received in England." Winthrop, p. 38. On the other hand Rev. 
Geo. Phillips is reported by Dr. Samuel Fuller in a letter to Gov. Bradford as 
saying: " If they will have him stand minister by that calling which he received 
from the prelates in England he will leave them." Winthrop, i, p. 16, note. 

The ordination of Mr. Prudden over the Milford Church in 1640, was by the 
imposition of the hands of the brethren ; and in the ordination of Roger 
Newton — Mr. Hooker's son-in-law — over the same church in 1660, the ruling 
elder was assisted by one of the deacons and one of the brethren. Bacon's 
Hist. Discourse, p. 294. 

26 No « records " of the Church are known to be in existence previous to the 
pastorate of Rev. Timothy Woodbridge in 16S5. From that date to the death 
of Rev. Edward Dorr in 1772, a meager and imperfect account of its transact- 
ions and roll of its membership is preserved. Then occurs another hiatus cov- 
ering more than the entire period of Dr. 'Strong's ministry down to 1S17, with 
the important exception that the names of members living in 1807 at the time 
of entrance on the new "Brick Meeting-house," and those added thereafter in 
the residue of Dr. Strong's days, are on record. See, however, as to the orig- 
inal Covenant of this Church, the suggestion made hereafter in these pages, in 
connection with the separation of the Second from the First Church of Hart- 
ford, concerning a possible identity between the original Covenant and that 
adopted by the Second Church in 1670. 



c;8 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

than about two years previously. That Covenant is as 
follows : 

" In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in obedience 
to his holy will and divine ordinance : Wee whose names are 
heer written, Beeing by his most wise and good providence 
brought together, and desirous to unite o r selves into one 
congregation or church, under o r Lord Jesus Christ our 
Head : In such sort as becometh all those whom he hath 
Redemed and sanctified unto himself, Doe heer sollemnly 
and Religiously as in his most holy presence, Promise and 
bynde o r selves to walke in all o r wayes according to the 
Rules of the Gospell, and in all sinceer conformity to his 
holy ordinances ; and in mutuall Love and Respect each to 
other : so near as God shall give us grace." 

Who precisely they were who subscribed at first to the 
Covenant cannot be affirmed. If the organization was as 
late as the autumn of 1632, which is probable — the Braintree 
Company being transferred from Mt. Wallaston to Newtown 
in August of that year, and a large reinforcement of men to 
be prominent in the Church arriving from England in Septem- 
ber, and the church edifice being erected doubtless after the 
Mt. Wallaston migration— the subscription to the Covenant, 
it can hardly be doubted, included the names of William 
Goodwin and Andrew Warner, shortly to be officers in the 
new organization." 7 The gathering of the Church, by sub- 
scription to the Covenant would naturally be followed by the 



27 William Goodwin, Edward Elmer, John Benjamin, William Lewis, James 
Olmstead, Nathaniel Richards, John Talcott, William Wadsworth, and John 
White, all of whom but John Benjamin came with the church to Hartford, 
arrived in Boston in the Lion, September 16, 1632. Simon Sackett and William 
Spencer, who also came to Hartford, were in Newtown before the arrival of 
the Braintree Company from Mt. Wallaston in August, 1632. Andrew War- 
ner, Matthew Allen, John Steele, Edward Stebbing, Richard Butler, Jeremy 
Adams, John Clark, Richard Goodman, Stephen Hart, Thomas Hosmer, 
William Kelsey, Richard Lord, Hester Mussy, Nathaniel Richards, Thomas 



1602-1633-] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 59 

choice and induction of such officers " as they can be pro- 
vided of." And William Goodwin may at this time have 
been chosen Ruling Elder ; and Andrew Warner, and possibly 
some one else, Deacons. 

The Ruling Eldership was an office of much dignity in 
the first New England churches. Its functions were numer- 
ous. The ruling elder was expected to moderate at church 
meetings, to propose the admission and dismission of mem- 
bers, to prepare all matters of business to come before the 
church, to exercise a watch over the private conduct of the 
church members, to reconcile differences among the mem- 
bers, to bring incorrigible offenders to the judgment of 
the collective brotherhood, to pronounce the censures de- 
termined on by them, to call the church together, to dismiss 
its meetings with the benediction, to visit the sick, to ordain 
persons elected by the church to any office therein, to preach 
in the absence of pastor and teacher. 28 

These were certainly very numerous and difficult func- 
tions ; liable to traverse at one extreme the duties and rights 
of the pastorate, and at the other the rights and responsibil- 
ities of the brotherhood. This liability became oftentimes 
an annoying reality, so that the ruling eldership, within 
fifty years of the New England planting, fell into neglect, 
and was soon generally abandoned. 29 

In the present case the office was devolved upon the only 
person who ever was appointed to it in the history of this 



Spencer, George Steele, Richard Webb, William Westwood, all of whom came 
to Hartford, may, most of them, with high degree of probability, be reckoned 
to have been of the "Braintree Company" proper, and consequently on the 
ground in August, 1632. See Paige's Cambridge, pp. 11-32. 

28 See Hooker's Survey, part ii, chap, i, pp. 16-19 ; Cotton's Keyes, pp. 20- 
23 ; Cotton's Way of the Churches, pp. 36-38, etc. 

29 The First Church in Boston chose two ruling elders as late as September 
18, 1701. 



6o THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

Church, Mr. William Goodwin, 30 a " very reverend and godly," 
but a very strong willed and persevering man, who stands 
out a conspicuous figure in the Church's early story. From 
all that appears he was an able, resolute, upright, and Christ- 
ian Elder, intent on the pure administration of the Gospel 
and of Gospel institutions. But it may be fairly questioned, 
also, whether the very experience of his vigor and pertinacity 
in the discharge of what he regarded as the functions 
devolved upon him — to which there will be an ample necessity 
of referring hereafter — was not one of the most persuasive 
arguments with the Church for never appointing a suc- 
cessor. 

But whensoever it was that Mr. Goodwin was chosen Rul- 
ing Elder and Andrew Warner Deacon, they doubtless 
officiated, according to the usage of the churches already 
instituted, in the induction of Thomas Hooker and Samuel 
Stone into their respective offices as Pastor and Teacher. 

This event, as we learn from the only contemporary 
record of the transaction, the journal of Governor Winthrop, 
occurred on the nth of October, 1633. The brief state- 
ment which he makes is as follows : " A fast at Newtown, 
when Mr. Hooker was chosen Pastor, and Mr. Stone 
teacher, in such manner as before at Boston." 31 He 



30 William Goodwin, who, with some degree of probability is thought to have 
been an Oxford graduate, admitted B. A., 1622^3, arrived in New England, 
September 16, 1632. He was a member of the General Court in Massachusetts 
in 1634. He was prominent in all the early transactions of the Hartford settle- 
ment ; a man of large means and great influence. In the troubles of Stone's 
day, he left Hartford in 1660, and went up the river to Hadley, where he was 
also ruling elder. Thence he went to Farmington, where he died in 1673. 
Governor Winthrop {Journal, p. 169, vol. i), speaks of him as "a very reverend, 
and godly man," but records his censure in "open court" for some "unreverend 
speech to one of the Assistants ; " as also Goodwin's humble acknowledgment 
of "his fault." 

81 i, p. 137 



1602-1633-] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 6l 

enters into no description of the event because he had 
recorded on the previous day, October ioth, the " manner " of 
procedure at the ordination of Rev. Mr. Cotton as pastor of 
the church in Boston, of which Winthrop was himself a 
member. 

That procedure becomes thus a guide in the present trans- 
action at Newtown. And in the light of it no essential mis- 
take can be made if it is described to have taken place as 
follows : 32 A Ruling Elder and two Deacons having 
been chosen — either at that time, or, as we have seen to 
be more probable, at an earlier date unknown — the " Con- 
gregation " signified in response to the proposal by the 
Ruling Elder, their choice of Mr. Hooker as Pastor, and 
of Mr. Stone as Teacher, by " erection of hands." Then 
the Ruling Elder asked the two elected officers if they 
"did accept of that call." Whereto if they answered, as 
did Cotton at Boston, they, in effect, replied that know- 
ing themselves ; 'to be unworthy and insufficient for that 
place, yet having observed all the passages of God's Provi- 
dence in calling (them) to it (they) could not but accept it." 
Whereupon the Ruling Elder and "3 or 4 of y e gravest 
members of y e chllrch,' , 33 laid their hands on Mr. Hooker's 
head, and the Ruling Elder prayed, and then "taking off 
their hands, laid them on again, and, speaking to him by 
name, they did thenceforth design him to said office of pas- 
tor in the name of the Holy Ghost, and did give him charge 
of the congregation, and thereby (as by a sign from God) 
indue him with the gifts fit for his office, and lastly did bless 
him." The Pastor having thus been ordained, he, now taking 



a2 Winthrop, vol. i, 136. 

33 See letter of Charles Gott to Bradford about the ordination of Higginson 
and Skelton at Salem. Bradford's History, p. 266. 



62 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

the lead, laid his hand together with the Ruling Elder and 
some ''grave member" of the church beside, on the head of 
Mr. Stone, and with similar service of prayer, and declara- 
tion of office, and sign of induement with gifts of the Holy- 
Ghost, and with benediction, ordained him to the office of 
Teacher. Then if Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson or other 
"neighboring ministers" were present, as was probably the 
case, they gave the new Pastor and Teacher the " right hand 
of fellowship." And so the Church in Newtown became 
fully equipped and officered for its work ; being, if we must 
suppose it not organized till this date of October n, 1633, 
the tenth or eleventh church gathered on this New England 
soil ; but if organized before, as we have seen reason to be- 
lieve it was, being probably, as Johnson says, the "eighth." 34 
Pastor and Teacher — the distinction made between these 
two officers in the primitive New England church, was 
supposed to be based on Scripture and to be practically 
important. This distinction is as well stated, perhaps, as 
anywhere in an "Answer" of certain "Reverend Brethren" 
in New England sent in 1639, to certain enquiries addressed 
to them in 1637 by "many Puritan Ministers" in old Eng- 
land ; the twenty-second of which enquiries was this : "What 
Essentiall difference put you between the Office of Pastor and 
Teacher, and doe you observe the same difference inviola- 
bly ? " 35 To which enquiry, this reply was given : " And for 



34 Wonder Working Providence, p. 61. The First Church in Roxbury, generally 
reckoned the sixth in point of constitution, was gathered in July, 1632; that 
in Lynn in August; Roxbury and Mansfield are supposed to follow, in that or- 
der, in 1632, both previous to the church at Charlestown, November 2, 1632. If 
the Church at Newtown was gathered at the building of its church in 1632, it 
probably comes in order of birth somewhere between Lynn, the seventh, and 
Charlestown, generally called the tenth. See Dexter's Congregationalism in 
Literature, p. 413. 

35 Church Government and Church-Cove?iant Discussed, etc., p. 5.' 



1602-1633.] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 63 

the Teacher and Pastor, the difference between them lyes in 
this, that the one is principally to attend upon points of 
Knowledge and Doctrine, though not without Application ; 
and the other to points of Practice though not without Doc- 
trine ; and therefore the one of them is called, He that teach- 
eth, and his worke is thus expressed, let him attend on teach- 
ing ; and the other, He that exhort eth, and his worke, to 
attend on exhortion, Rom. 1 2, 7, 8, and the gift of one is called 
a word of knowledge, and the gift of the other, a word of 
wisdom, 1 Cor. 12, 8, as experience also showeth, that one 
man's gift is more doctrinall, and for points of knowledge ; and 
another more exhortatory, and for points of practice." 36 

Both were preachers, but the Pastor's function as a 
preacher was thought to have reference to the practical part 
of life and behavior ; the Teacher's rather to doctrine and 
faith. Both had oversight of the flock, but the Pastor was 
supposed to be the shepherd and feeder, the Teacher the 
guide and warder. Both were to be vigilant against error, but 
the Pastor chiefly in matters of practice, the Teacher in mat- 
ters of belief. Both gave their whole time to the work of 
the ministry, and were supported by the common funds of 
the congregation. 

Yet it is obvious the distinction between these two offices 
was an obscure one, and that each was likely to be continually 
taking on the features of the other. The Pastor could not 
preach much without dealing with matters of doctrine ; and 
the Teacher could not instruct long without dealing with mat- 
ters of practice. So that it is not a surprising thing that this 
supposed important distinction between the pastoral and the 
teaching function, though lasting longer than the supposed 



36 Ibid, p. 76. The "Answer of the Elders " was drawn up by the hand of 
Richard Mather. 



64 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1602-1633. 

necessity of the ruling eldership, became before a very great 
while obsolete. In few churches did it exist beyond its 
first ministerial generation. 37 In this First Church it lasted 
long enough, perhaps, to see a second pair of pastors and 
teachers succeeding those who were earliest appointed, but 
then it died. 38 

There was the element of a want of a clear and substantial 
difference between the two functions, always existent to 
threaten the perpetuity of the continuance of the offices ; 
and there was, also, the further and very practical consid- 
eration of the expensiveness of the arrangement to threaten 
it also. If the work could be done by one man, the ques- 
tion of paying two would be a question few New England 
congregations would be long in finding how to answer to the 
benefit of the economic side. From the first the pastoral office 
seems to have been the more honored, and the more largely 
recompensed, 39 and not many years went by before the dual 



37 Salem's first pastor Skelton, dying in 1634, saw two teachers associated with 
him, Higginson in 1629, and Roger Williams in 1633, with the latter of whom the 
office died. The pastor of the First Church of Boston, Wilson, dying in 1667, 
saw also two teachers joined with him, Cotton in 1633, anc * Norton in 1687, 
which ended the office there ; as Davenport and Allen who succeeded Wilson 
in 1668 seem to have been colleague pastors. The first pastor of the Second 
Church of Boston, Mayo, dying in 1676, had one teacher joined with him, 
Mather, 1664. There does not appear to have been another. John Davenport, 
the first pastor of the First Church of New Haven, had two teachers associated 
with him, Hooke in 1644, and Street in 1689; ^> ut wnen Davenport went to 
Boston in 1667, Mr. Street was left in sole charge, and the office of teacher 
ended. 

38 It is not, perhaps, quite certain whether the relationship of Whiting and 
Haynes was that of Pastor and Teacher, or of colleague pastors. There was 
at first a difference in recompense which suggests the idea of the official dis- 
tinction, but that may have been only in deference to the question of seniority 
in experience and supposed value of service. 

3a The Second Church of Boston has this record under date of August 22, 
1662: "The Church of y° North End of Boston, met at Bro. Collicott's and 
there did agree, y l Mr. Mayo (Pastor) should have out of which is given to the 
church annually £6$; Mr. Mather (Teacher) £50, and Mr. Powell (Ruling 
Eider) £25." 



1602-1633-] GATHERING OF THE CHURCH. 65 

pastorate based on that passage in Ephesians, "He gave . . . 
pastors and teachers," became, like the ruling eldership, 
a thing of the past. Associate, or colleague pastors we see 
occasionally in our churches, but the distinction is not now 
based on differences of function in office; but simply on the 
inability of one man, whether by reason of advancing age or 
largeness of work to be done, to fulfil alone the duty 
required. 

But in that fresh new day of ecclesiastical experiment and 
of consecrated devotion, Pastor and Teacher were deemed 
indispensable. And Hooker and Stone entered upon the 
work of the two functions side by side. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE CHURCH AT NEWTOWN AND REMOVAL TO 
HARTFORD. 

"Gather my saints together unto me; those that have 
made a covenant with me by sacrifice." A covenant by 
sacrifice was what most of the Newtown settlers must have 
made in coming from England to the American wilderness. 
The change from the settled homes, the fertile fields, the 
milder atmosphere, the stately churches, the familiar ways 
of the old land, to the raw plantations, the rigorous climate, 
the rude habitations of a new colony, was a change which 
demanded high purpose and self-sacrificing stedfastness. 
Most of those who were gathered in the Newtown Church 
were people who came from conditions of life which certainly 
implied comfort, and some from those which implied luxury. 

The ministers were men of University education and of 
public reputation in the home country. They had preached 
in great churches to thronging multitudes. They preached 
now in a lowly church of logs or boards to a few men and 
women, like themselves exiles. 

For all, but especially for the women, of whose part in the 
sacrifice history preserves all too scanty memorial, but whose 
part was great and heroic — however unwritten save in that 
invisible record which woman's deeds have done so much to 
fill with sacred story — the hardship must have been great. 



1633-1636.] THE CHURCH AT NEWTOWN. 67 

As the autumn days shortened about the settlers who had 
just installed their Pastor and Teacher in this October of 
1633, Newtown was a little village of about a hundred 
families. 

In December of 1630, nearly three years before, the spot 
had been fixed upon, 1 previous to the arrival of any persons 
belonging to the " Braintree Company " as the site for a forti- 
fied town; some houses were erected and a "pallysadoe" 
made, and a fosse dug about the designated precinct. 2 
Thomas Dudley and Simon Bradstreet, and two or three 
others, had houses here as early as 163 1. In August of 1632 
the place received a large accession by the transference to 
this spot of the Braintree company, otherwise known as 
"Mr. Hooker's company," who had first settled at Mt. 
Wallaston. 

Then, later, arrived Mr. Goodwin, and several others with 
him in the Lion, in September. And in 1633, Mr. Hooker, 
and those who accompanied him — together doubtless with 
some at intermediate periods whose arrival is unrecorded — 
so that winter gathered round a settlement which William 
Wood, writing the same year, describes as "one of the 
neatest and best compacted towns in New England, having 
many fair structures, with many handsome-contrived streets. 
The inhabitants are most of them very rich, and well stored 



1 Winthrop, i, 46. Dudley, in a letter to the Countess of Lincoln, says : 
{Young's Mass., p. 320.) "After divers meetings at Boston, Roxbury, and 
Waterton, on the 28th of December we grew to this resolution, ... to 
build houses at a place east of Waterton, near Charles river, the next spring, 
and to winter there the next year ; so that by our examples, and by removing 
the ordnance and munition thither, all who were able might be drawn thither, 
and such as shall come to us hereafter to their advantage be compelled so to do; 
and so, if God would, a fortified town might there grow up, the place fitting 
reasonably well thereto." 

2 Mass. Col. Rec.y i, 93. Holmes, in Mass. Hist. Society Col., vii, 9, says that 
portions of the fosse were visible in 1800. 



68 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

with cattle of all sorts, having many hundred acres of ground 
paled in with one general fence, which is about a mile and a 
half long, which secures all their weaker cattle from the wild 
beasts." 3 These fair structures and handsome-contrived 
streets, must be understood in the light of certain orders on 
the records of the little town, that " all the houses within 
the bounds of the town shall be covered with slate or boards 
and not with thatch," and that " all houses shall range even, 
and stand just six feet on each man's own ground from the 
street," and that "whosoever shall fall any tree and let it lie 
across a highway one day, shall forfeit the tree." 4 

Here then was the village and Church of Newtown, with 
its meeting-house "with a bell upon it." 5 

Meantime the project for fortifying the place and making 
it the main town of the Colony was gradually surrendered, 
as the superior advantages of Boston became more and more 
apparent. Yet the place had a reasonable proportion of the 
prominent men of the Colony, 6 and might, perhaps, have 
remained the permanent seat of Government had not the 
principal inhabitants so soon after, as we have occasion to see, 
removed from it. 

The coming of so marked a reinforcement of the ministry 
of the Bay, as was implied in the arrival of Cotton, Hooker, 
and Stone, was a source of profound rejoicing to the whole 
Colony. 7 The ministers themselves instituted a meeting "at 



3 Wood's New England's Prospect, in Young's Mass., 402. 

4 Paige's Cambridge, p. 18-19. 

5 Ibid, pp. 17-22, and ante, p. 53. 

6 Dudley, the Deputy Governor, who became Governor in 1634, resided here; 
Bradstreet, who was an Assistant, was here also ; and so also was Haynes, who 
was chosen an Assistant in 1634, and Governor in 1635. 

7 The people were accustomed to say that their " three great necessities were 
now supplied ; for they had Cotton for their clothing, Hooker for their fishing, 
and Stone for their building." 



1633-1636.] THE CHURCH AT NEWTOWN. 69 

one of their houses by course, when some question of moment 
was debated." This meeting, the probable progenitor of the 
Boston Association of Congregational Ministers, was, how- 
ever, looked upon askance by Mr. Skelton, the pastor at 
Salem, and by Roger Williams, who was with him "exercising 
by way of prophecy"; they "fearing it might grow in time 
to a presbytery or superintendency, to the prejudice of the 
churches' liberties." 8 Apparently, however, the fear was 
not shared by others ; and Thomas Shepard, of Charlestown, 
in 1672, refers to these meetings, held when he was a boy, 
as of great utility. 

Special religious awakening at Boston followed the coming 
of Mr. Cotton, 9 and it was probably at this time that the 
Thursday lectures were established in each of the four adja- 
cent towns of Boston, Dorchester, Roxbury, and Newtown. 
But by October of the following year, 1634, "it being found 
that the four lectures did spend too much time, and proved 
overburdensome to the ministers and people; the ministers 
with the advice of the magistrates, did agree to reduce them 
to two days, viz.: Mr. Cotton at Boston one Thursday, or the 
5th day of the week, and Mr. Hooker at Newtown the next 
5th day, and Mr. Warham at Dorchester one 4th day of the 
week, and Mr. Wilde at Roxbury the next 4th day". 10 
Apparently, however, this arrangement did not long suit the 
people, who then, as generally, liked to get all they could out 
of their ministers ; and in December following, the old practice 
of the afternoon lectures in each town was resumed." Mr. 
Cotton's discourses on these Thursday lectures ranged over 
the whole field of manners and morals as well as doctrine. 



8 Winthrop, i, 139. 

9 Ibid, i, 144. 



10 Ibid, 172. 

11 Ibid, 180. 



yo THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

One of them was about veils for women. Mr. Cotton 
argued that veils were not universally necessary. Mr. Endi- 
cott, the fervid leader of the Salem company, being present, 
argued otherwise, alluding to the commandment of "the 
Apostle". And the discussion waxed so warm that the 
Governor — Winthrop — felt called on to interpose " and so it 
break off." 

At another lecture, Mr. Cotton, being moved by complaints 
of the sharp dealing of Robert Keaine, a merchant of Boston, 
"laid open the error of some false principles" in matters of 
trade; one of which false principles was, "That a man might 
sell as dear as he can, and buy as cheap as he can;" another, 
"That he may sell as he bought, though he paid too dear, 
and though the commodity be fallen." Against which he 
laid down the proposition, among others, that "A man may 
not ask any more for his commodity than the selling price, 
as Ephron to Abraham, the land is worth thus much." 14 

At still another lecture, Mr. Cotton came down in reproval 
on a proposition pending in the General Court for leaving 
out of office "two of their ancientest magistrates because 
they were grown poor," censuring "such miscarriages," and 
telling "the country, that such as were decayed in their 
estates by attending to the service of the country ought to 
be maintained by the country." 15 

But the staple of Mr. Cotton's Thursday lectures was 
religious exhortation and scripture exposition. He had prac- 
ticed the same thing at his lectures in England, and in the 
course of his lectures "at both Bostons, went through near 
the whole Bible." 1C Various issues of Mr. Cotton's exposi- 



12 Ibid, 149. 
"Ibid, 378-382. 

15 Ibid, 11,67. 

16 Joshua S. Colton's Narrative of the Planting, 4 Mass. Hist. Coll., iv, 284. 



1633-1636.] THE CHURCH AT NEWTOWN. yi 

tions on parts of the Apocalypse were soon printed in 
England. 

Mr. Cotton's Thursday lectures were probably in substance 
and topic essentially the same with those of other ministers 
of the Colony. We know more of them, mainly, because he 
had not only great ability, but he had an intelligent hearer 
who kept a journal. Mr. Hooker had no Governor Winthrop 
keeping a diary among his Newtown congregation, but he 
appears to have taken his full share in the matters going on. 
In 1633 and again in 1636, he was associated with Cotton 
and Wilson in reconciling certain oppositions of the some- 
what touchy Mr. Dudley of Newtown and Mr. Winthrop of 
Boston — once on some personal difference, 17 and again 
about the degree of leniency allowable in the administration 
of public affairs ; 18 Dudley being in favor of sterner measures 
than Winthrop practiced or desired. On the second of these 
occasions, Mr. Haynes, of Newtown, then governor, sided 
against the lenient conduct of Winthrop ; a fact, perhaps, to 
be made note of in explaining questions which will shortly 
arise concerning the causes of separation in the Colony. 

In November, 1634, the Assistants called on Mr. Hooker, 
with Mr. Cotton, and Mr. Wilde, the pastor of the Roxbury 
church, to take to task his old acquaintance, the usher of the 
Little Baddow school, John Eliot — then the young teacher 
of the church of Roxbury, afterward the saintly Apostle to 
the Indians — for saying something in his pulpit in the way of 
criticism of the magistrates in their manner of making a 
peace with the Pequots. 19 

So, too, Mr. Hooker was called on by the magistrates in 



17 Winthrop, i, 139-140. 

18 Ibid, 212. 

19 Ibid, 179. 



72 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

October, 1635, to deal with another offender — the then rest- 
less and afterward famous Roger Williams, " exercising by 
way of prophecy " at Salem. Mr. Williams had written two 
letters ; one to the churches of the Colony generally, " com- 
plaining of the magistrates ; " the other " to his own church, 
to persuade them to renounce communion with all the 
churches in the bay, as full of anti-Christian, errors." Being 
summoned before the Court, Mr. Williams " justified both 
the letters, and maintained all his opinions." Whereupon, 
" Mr. Hooker was appointed to dispute with him, but could 
not reduce him from any of his errors." But the magistrates 
had a reserve argument. The "next morning the court 
sentenced him to depart out of our jurisdiction within six 
weeks, all the ministers save one approving the sentence." 20 
In April, 1635, Mr. Hooker preached before the General 
Court at Newtown, " and showed the three great evils," what- 
ever they may have been. 21 

The Pastor of the Newtown Church took a hand, also, in 
another question which seems puerile in itself, but which 
had its significance in* old conflicts for conscience sake across 
the water. Mr. Endicott at Salem had, apparently because 
he thought it a symbol of idolatry, cut the Cross out of the 
military ensign. The matter made a great stir. The towns 
were called on to choose a commission of one from each town 
on the subject, to which commission the magistrates added 
four. The commission adjudged Mr. Endicott's "offence to 
be great," and "adjudged him to be worthy of admonition," and 
disablement from office " for one year ; . . . declining any heavier 
sentence because they were persuaded he did it out of tender- 



20 ibid, 204. 
n/bid, 185. 



1633-1636.] THE CHURCH AT NEWTOWN. 73 

ness of conscience, but not of any evil intent" 22 A sensible 
and quiet-tempered paper on the subject of this controversy 
was written by Mr. Hooker, which is preserved. 23 Its general 
bearing may be sufficiently inferred from the single para- 
graph : " Not, that I am a friend to the crosse as an idoll, or 
to any idollatry in it ; or that any carnall fear takes me asyde 
and makes me unwilling to give way to the evidence of the 
truth, because of the sad consequences that may be suspected 
to flow from it. I blesse the Lord, my conscience accuseth 
me of no such thing ; but that as yet I am not able to see 
the sinfulness of this banner in a civil use " And the lan- 
guage throughout is that of a man not easily blown away by 
what this proved to be, a temporary whirl of excitement. 

But, on the whole, this period of the Pastor's and the 
Church's history at Newtown does not seem to be very 
fruitful of important incidents. 

The Church doubtless prospered as well as most of the 
new churches of the country ; its elder minister was as 
honored as any man, unless it were Mr. Cotton, in the Col- 
ony, its prominent lay member, Mr. John Haynes, was 
chosen Governor in May, 1635, on which occasion he signal- 
ized his liberality and his ability alike, by declining to receive 
the usual salary of the office. 24 The town was apparently as 
prosperous and wealthy as any in the Bay, its tax being as 
large as Boston's. 20 

But there was, all along, from very near the arrival of 



22 ibid, 188. 

23 Mass. Hist. Society, Manuscript. 

24 Winthrop, i, 190. 

25 The assessment laid by the Court in May, 1635, was as follows : Dorches- 
ter, Boston, and Newtown, ^27, 6s. Sd. each; Roxbury and Watertown, ^20 
each ; Charlestown, Salem, and Sagus, £16 each ; Medford, £10 ; Ipswich and 
Newbury, £& each; Wessaguscus, £4. Col. Records, i, 152. 



74 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

the Griffins company, a certain uneasiness in respect to their 
situation ; all the causes of which are somewhat difficult to 
trace, but which comes out in distinct indications in various 
documentary records, and which at last culminated in the 
removal of nearly the entire membership of the Church and 
population of the town to Hartford. 

Some months after the induction of Hooker and Stone 
into office, the inhabitants of " Newtown complained [May, 
1634] of straitness for want of land, especially meadow, and 
desired leave of the court to look out either for enlargement 
or removal" 26 Leave was granted, " whereupon they sent 
men to see Agawam and Merrimack, and gave out that they 
would remove." But apparently the Agawam and Merri- 
mac reconnoisance was not satisfactory, for in July follow- 
ing they sent a pioneer party of six to Connecticut, " in- 
tending to remove their town thither." 27 

In September the matter came up again in the General 
Court. Governor Winthrop gives this- account of it : 28 
" September 4, the general court began at Newtown and 
continued a week, and then was adjourned fourteen days. 
Many things were there agitated and concluded, as fortifying 
in Castle Island, Dorchester, and Charlestown; also against 
tobacco, and costly apparel, and immodest fashions ; and com- 
mittees appointed for setting out the bounds of the towns ; 
with divers other matters which do not appear upon record. 
But the main business, which spent the most time, and 
caused the adjourning of the court, was about the removal of 
Newtown. They had leave, the last general court, to look 
out some place for enlargement or removal, with promise of 

26 Winthrop, i, 157-159. 

2 ? Ibid, 162. 

28 Ibid, pp. 166-169. 



1633-1636.] REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. 75 

having it confirmed to them, if it were not prejudicial to any 
other plantation ; and now they move that they might have 
leave to remove to Connecticut. This matter was debated 
divers days, and many reasons alleged pro and con. The 
principal reasons for their removal were, 1. Their want of 
accommodation for their cattle, so as they were not able to 
maintain their ministers, nor could receive any more of their 
friends to help them; and here it was alleged by Mr. Hooker, 
as a fundamental error, that towns were set so near to each 
other. 2. The fruitfulness and commodiousness of Connec- 
ticut, and the danger of having it possessed by others, Dutch 
or English. 3. The strong bent of their spirits to move 
thither. 

"Against this it was said, 1. That in point of conscience 
they ought not to depart from us, being knit to us in one 
body, and bound by oath to seek the welfare of this com- 
monwealth. 2. That in point of State and civil policy we 
ought not to give them leave to depart, (1.) Being, we were 
now weak and in danger to be assailed. (2.) The departure 
of Mr. Hooker would not only draw many from us, but also 
divert other friends that would come to us. (3.) We should 
expose them to evident peril both from the Dutch (who 
made claim to the same river, and had already built a fort 
there) and from the Indians, and also from our own state at 
home, who would not endure that they should sit down with- 
out a patent in any place which our king lays claim 
unto. 3. They might be accommodated at home by some 
enlargement which other towns offered. 4. They might 
remove to Merrimack, or any other place within our patent. 
5. The removing of a candlestick is a great judgment which 
is to be avoided. 

" Upon these and other arguments the court being divided, 



76 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

it was put to vote; and, of the "deputies, fifteen were for 
their departure, and ten against it. The governor and two 
assistants were for it, and the deputy and all the rest of the 
assistants were against it (except the secretary, who gave no 
vote) ; whereupon no record was entered, because there were 
not six assistants in the vote, as the patent requires. Upon 
this grew great difference between the governor and assist- 
ants, and the deputies. They would not yield the assistants 
a negative voice, and the others (considering how dangerous 
it might be to the commonwealth, if they should not keep 
that strength to balance the greater number of the deputies) 
thought it safe to stand upon it. So, when they could pro- 
ceed no farther, the whole court agreed to keep a day of 
humiliation to seek the Lord, which accordingly was done in 
all the congregations the 18th day of this month [September] ; 
and the 24th the court met again. Before they began Mr. 
Cotton preached (being desired by all the court, upon Mr. 
Hooker's instant excuse of his unfitness for that occasion). 
He took his text out of Hag., ii, 4, etc., out of which he laid 
down the nature or strength (as he termed it) of the magis- 
tracy, ministry, and people, viz.: the strength of the magis- 
tracy to be their authority ; of the people, their liberty ; and 
of the ministry, their purity ; and showed how all of these 
had a negative voice, etc. ; and yet that the ultimate resolu- 
tion, etc., ought to be in the whole body of the people, etc., 
with answer to all objections, and a declaration of the peo- 
ple's duty and right to maintain their true liberties against 
any unjust violence, etc., which gave great satisfaction to the 
company. And it pleased the Lord so to assist him, and to 
bless his own ordinances, that the affairs of the court went 
on cheerfully ; and although all were not satisfied about the 
negative voice to be left to the magistrates, yet no man 



1633-1636.] REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. 77 

moved aught about it, and the congregation of Newtown 
came and accepted of such enlargement as had formerly 
been offered them by Boston and Watertown ; and so the 
fear of their removal to Connecticut was removed." It was 
on the occasion of this Court, and it affords an indication of 
the excitement of the parties in interest, that the very "rev- 
erend and godly " William Goodwin, the ruling " elder of the 
congregation at Newtown," was reproved for his " unrever- 
end speech " in the open Court. 

Things now seemed amicably adjusted. The enlargements 
embraced the territory now known as the towns of Brookline, 
Brighton, Newton, and Arlington. Making every allowance 
for the necessities of a hundred families, even of an agricul- 
tural and cattle-raising class, this territory certainly seems 
sufficient. The population now dwelling on the same soil is 
upward of seventy thousand. But they were not easy. "The 
strong bent of their spirits to remove" continued. Some 
cause deeper than any lack of ground in five townships to 
pasture the cattle of a few settlers, in the third year of their 
arrival, must have impelled to this restlessness. 

This restlessness had a curious exemplification in one 
occurrence which happened in November after the amicable 
adjustment spoken of above. On the third of that month, 
John Pratt, a surgeon by occupation, and a member of the 
Newtown Church, was called up before the Court 29 to give 
an account of a letter he had written home to England, 
complaining of the rockiness and barrenness of the country. 

Mr. Pratt apologized for his letter, saying, in the course of 
his apology: "first, I did not mean that which I said in 
respect to the whole country, or our whole patent in general, 
but only of that compass of ground wherein these towns are 



29 Ibid, p. 206. 



78 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

so thick set together; and, secondly, I supposed that they 
intended so to remain, because (upon conference with divers) 
I found that men did think it unreasonable that they or any 
should remove or disperse into other parts of the country ; 
and upon this ground I thought I could not subsist myself, 
nor the plantation, nor posterity. But I do acknowledge 
that since my letter [which had, apparently, been written a 
year or more before] there have been sundry places newly 
found out, as Neweberry, Concord, and others (and that 
within this patent) which will afford good means of subsist- 
ence for men and beasts, in which and other such-like new 
plantations, if the towns shall be fewer and the bounds larger 
than these are, I conceive they may live comfortably. The 
like I think of Cofiecticott, with the plantations there now in 
hand, and what I conceive so sufficient for myself, I conceive 
so sufficient, also, for my posterity." Mr. Pratt goes on 
eating humble-pie at considerable length, protesting that 
"as for some grounds of my returning, which I concealed 
from my friends for fear of doing hurt, I meant only some 
particular occasions and apprehensions of mine own, not 
intending to lay any secret blemish upon the State." 3 The 
penitent culprit's apology for his letter was endorsed with a 
recommendation to favorable consideration by the three 
ministers, Peter Bulkley, John Wilson, and his own pastor, 
Mr. Hooker; and he was "pardoned his offence." But 
his references in his letter to the necessity, in looking 
out for a plantation, to have respect to the needs of his 
"posterity," were remembered. When he was drowned, 
twelve years afterwards, on his voyage back to 'England, 
Winthrop could not refrain from recording in his journal 
that "God took him away childless." :!) 



30 Mass. Records, i, 358-360. 

31 Winthrop, ii, 293. 



1633-1636.] REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. jg 

Undoubtedly the land question had something to do with 
the removal, 32 but there must have been something beside. 
The "strong bent of their spirits" had some other cause 
also. What was it ? 

The historian Hubbard, writing within fifty years of these 
events, and while people still lived who were personally 
acquainted with the actors in them, says that other motives 
than deficiency of land did "more powerfully drive on the 
business", and were not, indeed, altogether concealed. 
" Some men," he continues, "do not well like, at least cannot 
well bear, to be opposed in their judgments and notions, and 
thence they were not unwilling to remove from under the 
power, as well as out of the bounds of the Massachusetts." 33 
"Two such eminent stars, such as were Mr. Cotton and Mr. 
Hooker, both of the first magnitude, though of differing 
influence, could not well continue in one and the same 
orb." 34 Dr. Trumbull, in speaking of the death of Mr. 
Haynes, refers to the motives which, in part, induced the 
removal of the Newtown people to Connecticut, and inti- 



32 Johnson, in his Wonder Working Providence, writing within twenty years 
of the event, says, pp. 75-76 : " The servants of Christ, who peopled the Towne 
of Cambridge, were put upon thoughts of removing, hearing of a very fertill 
place upon the River of Canectico low Land, and well stored with Meddow, 
which is greatly in esteeme with the people of New England, by reason the 
Winters are very long. This people seeing that Tillage went but little on, 
Resolved to remove and breed up store of Cattell, which were then at eight and 
twenty pound a Cow, or neare upon, but assuredly the Lord intended far 
greater matters than man purposes, but God disposes these men, having their 
hearts gone from the Lord, on which they were seated, soone tooke dislike at 
every little matter, the Plowable plaines were too dry and sandy for them, and 
the Rocky places, although more fruitfull, yet to eate their bread with toile of 
hand, and how they deemed it unsupportable. And therefore they onely waited 
now for a people of stronger Faith than themselves were to purchase their 
Houses and Land, which in conceipt they could no longer live upon, and 
accordingly they met with Chapmen, a people new come, who having bought 
their possessions, they highed them away to their new Plantation." 

33 Hubbard's History of New England, 306. 
8*7^,173. 



80 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

mates that considerations of the relative popularity of 
Haynes and Winthrop, and Cotton and Hooker, were not 
without influence. Mr. Haynes, he says, 35 "was not consid- 
ered, in any respect, inferior to Governor Winthrop. His 
growing popularity, and the fame of Mr. Hooker, who as to 
strength of genius and his lively and powerful manner of 
preaching, rivalled Mr. Cotton, were supposed to have no 
small influence upon the General Court in their granting 
liberty to Mr. Hooker and his company to remove to Con- 
necticut." 

Some excellent writers on the life of Mr. Hooker have 
seemed quite unwilling to recognize in him, or to allow the 
existence in any of his associates, of any such feelings, 
uttered or unexpressed, as are suggested in these statements 
of Hubbard and Trumbull. But nothing could possibly be 
more natural, and few things are more probable. Nor is 
there anything about it for which to apologize. 

The settlers of the Bay Colony were men of strong char- 
acter and pronounced opinions. They came to the country, 
to a considerable extent in companies based on previous 
fellowships. They established themselves in townships, 
largely according to these pre-existing associations. The 
Newtown people, in especial, were men who had known one 
another and their Pastor in the old country. They came 
into the pre-existing community of the Bay with something 
of the character of a distinct body-corporate. Their after 
history in Connecticut showed that on certain points of 
administrative policy, their views were different from those 
of the managers of the Bay settlement. This difference 
manifested itself early. Hubbard says, " after Mr. Hooker's 
coming over, it was observed that many of the freemen grew 



Trumbull, vol. i, p. 216. 



1633-1636-] REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. 3j 

to be very jealous of their liberties." A somewhat different 
conception of the "authority of the magistrates" was dis- 
tinctly developed at the Court of September, 1634, between 
the Newtown party and the party opposed to the removal. 
A sharp difference of opinion between Mr. Haynes and 
Governor Winthrop, as to administrative policy, found open 
and free expression in January of 1636, and had been taken 
cognizance of by all the ministers and magistrates, who had 
put themselves on one or the other side of the issue. 30 So 
that there is a very great probability that on political grounds 
Mr. Haynes, Mr. Goodwin, and the leading laymen of the 
Newtown settlement might have felt they would be more 
comfortable under an administration of their own, in some 
other quarter of the boundless new land. 

Nor is it unlikely that the Pastor shared the feeling. 
Before he left England, overtures had been made by his 
friends, acting at Mr. Hooker's motion, 37 to secure Mr. Cotton 
as colleague with him in the proposed enterprise to America. 
The overture was declined. But on the arrival together in 
the new country of the two old acquaintances — and doubt- 
less always two friends — the Colony seems to have been 
thrown into a kind of ferment as to the proper disposal of 
Mr. Cotton. Thirteen days after he landed, the Governor 
and Council and all the ministers and elders, were called 
together "to consider about Mr. Cotton, his sitting down." 38 
Boston was fixed on as the " fittest place ; " and it was at first 
agreed that payment for his weekly lectures should be out of 
the public treasury. This last resolve was presently revoked 
as being invidious in its discrimination, but it indicates the 
feeling of the time. 

36 Winthrop, i, 212. 

37 Magnalia, i, 393. 
S8 Winthrop, i, 133. 



82 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 633-1 636. 

Established thus, with the acclaim of magistracy and 
people, in the central point of ecclesiastical influence in the 
Colony, the great abilities and tireless versatility of Mr. Cotton 
pervaded everything. " Whatever he delivered in the pulpit 
was soon put into an Order of Court, if of a civil, or set up as 
a practice in the church, if of an ecclesiastical concernment." 39 
On the critical occasion of the hearing before the Court, in 
September, 1634, of the great question of the removal — 
when Mr. Hooker somewhat unaccountably excused himself 
from preaching on the political issue raised by the Newtown 
proposal — Mr. Cotton's effort apparently settled the business 
adversely to the Newtown party. 40 

Add to these considerations, more or less of political and 
personal quality, some also of a theological kind, which 
soon began to manifest themselves. Mrs. Hutchinson 
arrived in September of the same year which saw the 
adverse determination of the Newtown plan for migration. 
And though the controversy which her peculiar views 
occasioned, did not develop into prominence till afterward, its 
earlier effects in separation of feelings and in bickerings in 
the brotherhood, part of whom adhered to Mr. Cotton in his 
earlier sympathy with Mrs. Hutchinson's notions, and part 
of whom agreed with Wilson and Hooker in opposing them, 
were already visible in 1635. 

So that, on the whole, it is neither strange, nor at all dis- 
creditable, that the Newtown company should have thought 
themselves likely to be happier and more useful in some 
other settlement than that to which the Court had ordered 
them in 1632. Conscious of the possession of laymen as 
able as any in the Colony, and of a minister of as great, if of 



39 Hubbard's New England, p. 182. 

40 Winthrop, i, 168. 



1633-1636.] REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. 83 

different, qualities as any other, their " strong bent" to 
remove, continued and finally prevailed. 

Some of them apparently went to Connecticut before 
September, 1635, for on the 3d of that month William West- 
wood, of Newtown, was " sworn Constable of the plantations 
at Connecticut till some other be chosen." 41 Others soon fol- 
lowed. 42 These settlers of 1635 suffered immense hardship 
that winter along the banks of the great river, which froze 
over that season by the 15 th of November. Famine and 
cold seemed to conspire against the enterprise. Cattle died. 
The people had to resort to acorns for food. Except for the 
succor afforded by the Indians many must have perished. 43 

But these hardships were not suffered to deter the main 
body of the Newtown pilgrims. When spring came again, 
the rest of the company were ready for flight. 

Fortunately the arrival, the autumn previous, of a large 
number of emigrants in the Bay, and the gathering of a con- 
siderable part of them into a church relationship under the 
pastoral care of Rev. Thomas Shepard on the 1st of Feb- 
ruary, 1636, 44 enabled the Newtown people to sell their 
houses to the new comers. Indeed, this arrangement for 
the sale of the houses had apparently, to a great extent, been 
effected in the October previous; 4 ' and during the interval 



* l Mass. Col. Rec, i, 159. 

42 Winthrop, i, p. 204. 

43 Trumbull's Connecticut, vol. i, 62-63. 

44 Winthrop, i, 214. 

45 « "When we had been here two days we came (being sent for by friends at 
Newtown,) to them, to my brother, Mr. Stone's house. And that congregation 
being upon their removal to Hartford, at Connecticut, myself and those that 
came with me found many houses empty, and many persons willing to sell ; and 
hence our company bought off their houses to dwell in, until we should see 
another place fit to move unto. But having been here some time, divers of our 
brethren did desire to sit still, and not to remove farther." Shepard's Autobi- 
ography. Young's Mass., p. 545. 



84 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1633-1636. 

Mr. Shepard and his company were resident at Newtown, 
and, as the town records show, were active in its affairs. 40 

On the 3d of March, 1636, John Steele and William 
Westwood, both of the Newtown company, were appointed 
among the eight commissioners empowered by Massachu- 
setts to "govern the people at Connecticut." 47 These com- 
missioners were either then in Connecticut or speedily after, 
as five of them, including Steele and Westwood, held a 
"corte att Newton [Hartford] 26 Apr. 1636." 48 

The thirty-first of May saw the emigrants on their journey. 
It is the season of the year in our New England climate 
when the billowy expanses of our forests burst into leaf, and 
each day marks a visible deepening of color and density in the 
landscape verdure. The streams run full with the newly 
melted .snows of winter. The ground is spotted with the 
anemonae and wild violet. In the marshy places glow the 
adder-tongue and the cowslip. The season is alive with 
promise, but the nights, though short, are damp and chill. 

The Newtown pilgrims struck out into the pathless 
woods. Only a mile or two from their place of brief habita- 
tion, and they were in a wilderness which no sign of human 
life illuminated. There were hills to be climbed, and streams 
to be forded, and morasses to be crossed. Their guides were 
the compass and the northern star. Evening by evening 
they made camp, and slept guarded and sentineled by the 
blazing fires. One of their number, Mrs. Hooker, the Pas- 
tor's wife, was carried on a litter because of her infirmity. 
It was a picturesque but an anxious and arduous enterprise. 
Men and women of refinement and delicate breeding turned 



4ti Paige's Cambridge, pp. 36-39. 

47 Colonial Records of Connecticut, I, Preface, iii, and note. 

™Z6id,p. 1. 



1633-1636.] REMOVAL TO HARTFORD. $5 

pioneers of untracked forests in search of a wilderness home. 
The lowing of a hundred and sixty cattle sounding through 
the forest aisles, not to mention the bleating of goats and 
the squealing of swine, summoned them to each morning's 
advance. The day began and ended with the voice of 
prayer and perhaps of song. At some point on their fort- 
night's journey a Sabbath must have intervened, when of 
course the camp remained still, and the people gathered 
under the green canopy of the waving trees to listen to the 
exhortations of their ministers, and to join in solemn suppli- 
cation and exultant psalm. Their toilsome and devious way 
led them to near the mouth of the Chicopee, not far from 
where Springfield now stands. Thence down along the Con- 
necticut was a comparatively straight and easy pathway. 
Meadow lands were in sight always. The wide, full river, 
flowing with a larger tide than now, and swollen with its 
northern snows, was crossed on rafts and rude-constructed 
boats, and on the soil where we now are, cheered by the 
sight of some pioneer attempts at habitation and settlement, 
made by those of their number who had come the season 
previous, the Ark of the First Church of Hartford rested, 
and the weary pilgrims who bore it hither stood still. 49 



49 Tantalizing but uncertain rumors of the existence somewhere of a Diary 
of this wilderness journey have from time to time been heard. The rumor 
affirms that the diary records the encampment, the first night of their journey, 
at a " split rock " in Natick, which the present owner of a farm there believes 
he identifies. The rumor also has it that the names of those who took part in 
the daily services are recorded. Possibly such a record may be somewhere 
extant, and it may yet turn up to light. But its existence is only a matter of 
vague and questionable report. It would receive a welcome, should it appear. 



CHAPTER V. 



THE TRANSPLANTED CHURCH : EARLY DAYS. 

The arrival of Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone, and their com- 
panions, sometime in June, 1636, may be said to mark the 
establishment of Church institutions in Hartford. Some of 
the Newtown people, who came the year before, were active 
in the civil functions of the new Colony and new town, and 
a few transactions bearing date of 1635 and early in 1636, 
before the arrival of the Pastor's company, are witnesses to 
some kind of temporary township and colonial administration. 

The entire disappearance of Church-Records prior to 1685, 
throws inquiry concerning ecclesiastical affairs, in the first 
fifty-two years, back upon the few meager notices to be gath- 
ered from the minutes of secular transactions. It is not the 
purpose of the present chronicle of the story of the First 
Church of Hartford to detail the history of the Colony or of 
the Town. These will be referred to only so far as they 
connect themselves with the story of the ecclesiastical insti- 
tution whose experiences are being passed in review. 

Who precisely of the Newtown company, besides Mr. 
Steele and Mr. Westwood, were on the ground prior to Mr. 
Hooker's coming ; who came with Mr. Hooker, and whether 
all who did arrive in either company were members of the 
Church organization, it is impossible to tell. A record bear- 
ing date about 1639 gives a list of persons then resident in 



1636-1647.] TRANSPLANTED CHURCH. $7 

town, who were divided into two classes, "proprietors of 
land" and "such inhabitants as were granted lotts to have 
onely at the towne's courtesie." l In the absence of certain 
evidence concerning the question of church-membership of 
some considerable portion of these individuals, the proba- 
bility is that most or all of the first class were members of 
the Church, and that a considerable number of the second 
class were also. 

Arrived upon the ground, one of the earliest transactions 
was the purchase of the land from the Indians. This seems 
to have been done in 1636, and Rev. Samuel Stone, the 
Teacher of the Hartford Church, and Mr. William Goodwin, 
its Ruling Elder, were the agents in the negotiation.* 

The territory embraced in the purchase was about coinci- 
dent with the territory subsequently known as the township of 
Hartford. The portion needed for the immediate uses of the 
little village to be established was parceled out into lots cover- 
ing the older settled portions of this city. 3 These home lots 
averaged about two acres each ; in the distribution of which 
those which fell to the portion of the Pastor, Teacher, and 
Ruling Elder were situated on what is now Arch Street, on 
the Little River ; Mr. Goodwin's being on the corner of Main 
Street ; Mr. Stone's next eastward ; and Mr. Hooker's 
beyond Mr. Stone's. Dea. Andrew Warner's lot lay across 
the Little River, opposite Mr. Stone's ; and Edward Steb- 



1 See Appendix I. 

2 The original deed or treaty was lost, and in 1670 the agreement was renewed 
and confirmed by a document signed by the heirs of " Sunckquassen, Sachem of 
Suckiage, alias Hartford." A previous purchase from Wopigwooit, the grand 
sachem of the Pequots, of a part of the same territory, a mile wide along the 
Connecticut, by the Dutch, who built a fort at the mouth of Little River in 1633, 
seems to have been wholly ignored. The price paid does not appear. 

3 See map, p. 88. 



88 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

bin's — then, or soon after, Deacon — at the east of Meeting- 
house Yard ; that is to say, from our present State House 
Square, north of State Street, down to Front. A consider- 
able part of the territory lying outside the village limits was 
portioned out to the settlers in different amounts, according 
to the " proportions they payd for the purchass of sayd 
lands." 4 From time to time the town voted land to individ- 
uals in view of public services or private necessity. Every 
home-lot not improved within twelve months was to revert to 
the town. 5 

The central matter of interest in the place, from an eccle- 
siastical point of view, was of course the church edifice. 
This was situated on the Meeting-house Yard, a tract of 
territory covering the ground now known as State House 
Square, and of larger extent, the ground having been 
encroached upon afterward, both on the northern and south- 
ern sides. Here somewhere upon that portion now covered 
by the buildings of Central Row, it is supposed a temporary 
structure first afforded a meeting-place for public worship. 

On April 5th, 1638, the General Court directed that "the 
costlets . . . . in the meeting-house of Harteford" 
should be put "in good kelter ;" 6 and the town voted among 

its earliest requirements that there be a "guard of men 

to attend with their arms fixed, and 2 shote of powder and 
shott, at least, upon every publique meeting for religious use, 
with two seriants to oversee the same, and keepe.out one of 
them sentinall every meeting." This structure was probably 
from the outset designed for transient use only, and was, in 
1640 or 1 64 1, given by the town to Mr. Hooker. 



4 Town Record, transcript by John Allyn in 1665. 

5 Town Record of early but uncertain date. 
G Col. Records, vol. i, 17. 




li utc "km e rur -Land 



1636-1647.] TRANSPLANTED CHURCH. $g 

The structure which succeeded it, and which for about 
ninety-nine years served the purposes of this Church, was 
built upon the eastern side of the Meeting-house Yard, 
near the corner of the road leading down to the river, coin- 
ciding nearly enough with State Street. Mr. Wadsworth, in a 
note to the sermon at the dedication of the new church-edifice 
erected in 1739, on the site of the present First Church 
building, speaks of the first meeting-house as having been 
built in 1638. The explanation of the seeming improbability 
of the statement, and its reconciliation with the order of the 
Court about the corselets before spoken of, is doubtless to be 
found in the intentionally transient employment of the build- 
ing which was first used as the place of religious gathering, 
and which, being disused, was given to the Pastor for a barn. 7 

Votes respecting this new house appear from time to time 
on the records. Probably it was begun in 1638, and not fin- 
ished, perhaps, till 1641. In its process the town voted, 
October 20, 1640, that Goodman Post should clapboard the 
building, furnishing the clapboards himself at 5 j. 6d. the hun- 
dred. Sometime in 1640 or 1641 the town voted "that a 
porch shall be built at the meeting-house, with stairs up into 
the chamber." Then on March 13th of the last mentioned 
year, the Townsmen for the time being, were empowered to 
" appoint the seats in the meeting-house." 

Votes concerning a gallery in the meeting-house appear on 
the records at the different dates of February 3, 1645 '■> Feb- 
ruary 11, 1661 ; February 17, 1665 ; and February, 1666. How 



7 The Stratford town records state that about the first of April, 1638, two 
Indians went with Rev. John Higginson, Mr. Hopkins, and Mr. Goodwin to 
Hartford, and not long after there was a committee in Mr. Hooker's barn, "the 
meeting house then not buylded." See notes by Mr. C. J. Hoadly, about Meet- 
ing-Houses of the First Ecclesiastical Society, published in appendix to sermon 
of Dr. Bacon, preached at a pastoral installation in the First Church, February 
27, 1879. 



go THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

many of these votes were carried into effect, or on how many 
sides the house was thus furnished with galleries it is impos- 
sible to say. "The pulpit was on the west side. The 
building was nearly square, with a hip roof, in the cen- 
ter of which was a turret where hung the bell, brought by 
the settlers, doubtless from Newtown, now Cambridge, and 
placed in the turret when the edifice was first erected. There 
was a door on the north side, perhaps also other doors, and 
near by a horse-block for the accommodation of those who 
lived so far off that they must ride. The chamber over the 
porch, perhaps served as the arsenal for town and colony, as 
a room in the south church did in later times. The windows 
were small, and the glass set in lead. Stairs from the inte- 
rior lead up to galleries on the south and east sides, — that on 
the south being appropriated to the boys and unmarried young 
men, and frequent mention may be found of the appointment 
of persons to keep them in order during the time of religious 
services." 8 

The worshipers were seated by the public authorities 
according to their rank, men and women apart and on oppo- 
site sides. The Governor and Magistrate had official pews 
in eligible positions. 

Not far from the meeting-house, on the same public square, 
were several other more or less prominent objects, the mar- 
ket, the jail, the stocks, and the whipping-post. Near by, 
too, was the first burial-ground. It lay on the northerly side 



8 Hoadly's notes. "The pulpit was furnished," Mr. H. says, in 1703, "with a 
plush cushion and a green cloth with a silk fringe and tassels." Probably no 
such finery was seen in it in Mr. Hooker's day. The same accurate antiquarian 
says : " The east side of the building required to be new shingled in 1660, and 
the south and west sides in 1667. The roof was ordered to be new covered with 
cedar shingles in 1687. There were new casements for the windows in 1699, 
and new ground sills, underpinning, and clapboards, and a new flooring of oak 
plank for the turret, were required in 1704-6." 



1636-1647.] PEQUOT WAR. g T 

of the meeting-house square, westward up toward the side of 
the present city building. The ground was formerly higher 
than now, and its leveling removed alike monuments and 
graves. 9 

But this spot was not long used for burial purposes. At a 
town meeting on the nth of January, 1640, a vote was 
passed, taking part of the lot of Richard Olmsted for a burial- 
ground. 10 This is the ground in the rear of the First Church 
buildings on Main Street, where so many of Hartford's early 
dead still repose ; but where the bones of some have been 
disturbed by the digging for the foundations of various 
edifices which have encroached upon the hallowed spot. 

Hardly, however, could that preliminary church edifice 
have been reared, and that first burial place have been 
staked out, and the plain dwellings of the villagers been made 
habitable, before it became necessary for the settlers to fight 
for their homes and their lives. In February of 1637, several 
men were killed by the Indians at Saybrook, 11 A little later 
three men going down the river in a shallop were assailed 
and overpowered by the savages, and their bodies cut open 
and hung on the trees by the river side. 12 In April the 
Indians waylaid the people at Wethersfield, killing six 
men and three women, and carrying two girls away cap- 



9 Hartford in the Olden Time, p. 79. It is said that many of the stones of 
this primitive and leveled burial-ground were used in the foundation of build- 
ings on the north side of the square. Mr. James B, Hosmer, who died aged 
97, in 1878, is said to have been accustomed to aver that his father often told 
him he had seen some of the old gravestones of this first burying-ground in the 
sub-structure of buildings spoken of. 

10 In March, 1640, a regulation concerning the depth of graves, and the price 
for digging them was adopted. None was to be less than four feet deep, for 
which the price was 2s. 6d. ; none for any one above four years old, less than 
five feet, the price to be 3^., and none for one over ten years, to be less than 
six feet deep, for which the rate was 3s. 6d. 

11 Winthrop, i, 253. 

12 Trumbull's Hist., i, 76. 



g 2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

tives. 13 The outlook was alarming. Nearly thirty Con- 
necticut dwellers had been killed ; some of them with bar- 
baric torture. A general combination of the Indian tribes 
for the extirpation of the white men seemed impending. A 
Court was gathered at Hartford — so called by public order for 
the first time in February previous, in honor it is said of Mr. 
Stone, who was born in Hartford, England — on the first of 
May, 1637, at which it was " ordered that there shalbe an 
offensive warr ag f the Pequoitt." " Hartford was called on 
for forty-two men, Windsor for thirty, and Wethersfield for 
eighteen. Captain John Mason, of Windsor, commanded the 
little army, which started down the river in " one Pink, one 
Pinnace, and one Shallop." 15 Mr. Stone, Teacher of the 
Hartford Church, went with them as chaplain. And before 
they started, Mr. Hooker, the Pastor, made them an address 
in which he uttered the encouraging declaration "that the 
Pequots should be bread for them." 16 

Arrived at Saybrook, a division of opinion as to the 
prudence of going on in the enterprise arose, and the general 
judgment of the "Councill of Warr" was against advance. 
"Capt. Mason in this difficult Case" went to the chaplain 
"and desired him that he would that Night commend their 
Case and Difficultyes before the Lord." The chaplain did 
so, and having, apparently, arrived at the same view of the 



13 Winthrop, i, 260. For this Wethersfield assault there seems to have been 
a provocation. See Lothrop's Cent. Sermon at West Springfield, 1796, p. 23-24. 
" Sequin, a head man of the River Indians, gave lands on the river to the Eng- 
lish that he might sit down by them, and be protected. But when he came to 
Wethersfield and set up his Wigwam the people drove him away by force. Re- 
senting the Wrong, but wanting Strength to revenge it, he secretly drew in the 
Pequots, who came up the river and killed six men." Very probably had the 
Indians a historian, other provocations would have found record. 

u Col. Records, vol. i, II. 

15 Mason's Brief History in Mather's Early History, Drake's Ed., p. 121. 

™Ibid, 156. 



1636-1647.] PEQUOT WAR. 93 

edible character of the Pequots which Mr. Hooker had 
entertained before the expedition left Hartford, told Capt. 
Mason in the morning, that " though formerly he had been 
against sailing to Naraganset and landing there, yet now he 
was fully satisfied to attend to it." ir This settled the matter, 
and "they agreed all with one accord" to go on. 

The story is a familiar one of the heroic attack, May 26th, on 
the Pequot fort, eight miles northeast of where now is New 
London — a "Fort or Palisade of well nigh an Acre of Ground, 
which was surrounded with Trees and half Trees, set into the 
Ground three feet deep, and fastened close to one another — " 18 
and the surprise and slaughter of the Indians. It was a 
marvelously courageous and vigorously successful stroke, 
and permanently broke the Pequot power. Several hundred 
Indians of both sexes and all ages were killed by fire and 
sword in about an hour's time. 19 It was hardly a character- 
istic piece of church work ; yet it is probable that the seventy 
men from these three towns, and the twenty men who joined 
them at Saybrook in place of twenty sent back from that 
point, were nearly to a man church-members, and the whole 
enterprise was backed by profound faith, not alone in its 
necessity, but its propriety. And in celebrating the victory, 
stout John Mason says: "It may not be amiss here also to 
remember Mr. Stone (the famous Teacher of the Church of 
Hartford}) who was sent to preach and pray with those who 
went out in those Engagements against the Pequots. He 
lent his best Assistance and Counsel in the Management of 
those Designs, and the Night in which the Engagement was, 
(in the morning of it) I say that Night he was with the Lord 



17 ibid, 125. 

18 Ibid, 129, note, Under hilPs Statement 

19 Ibid, 136. Vincent sets the number at between three and four hundred ; 
Mason at five or six hundred; Gardner at three hundred. A T oti\ p. 136. 



94 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

alone, wrestling with Him by Faith and Prayer, and surely 
his Prayers prevailed for a blessing ; and in the very Time 
when our Israel was ingaging with the bloud-thirsty Peq7iots, 
he was in the Top of the Mount, and so held up his Hand, 
that Israel prevailed." 20 

This, done in self-defense and necessity, is all justifiable 
enough ; but it a little revolts our feeling to find Mr. Ludlow 
and Mr. Pynchon and several others of the Colony carrying 
to Boston the skin and scalps of the vanquished " Sassacus 
and his brother and five other Pequot sachems, who being 
fled to the Mohawks for shelter . . . were by them sur- 
prised and slain." 21 Even in that hard age there was one 
man, Roger Williams, who said of it, "Those Dead Hands 
were no pleasing sight. ... I have alwaies showne Dis- 
like to such dismembering the Dead." 22 And when it is 
remembered that the very next spring following this 
slaughter of the Pequot tribe and conveyance of scalps 
and skins to Boston, the settlements along the river were 
saved from what threatened to be a fatal famine by the 
purchase " of so much Corn at reasonable Rates " of the 
Indians at Deerfield, " that the Indians brought down to 
Hartford and Windsor fifty Canoes laden with Corn at one 
Time," 23 one wonders whether, even then, a better use might 
not have been made of the native proprietors of the soil than 
shooting and burning them. 

This deliverance from so unexpected a quarter — together 
with the safe arrival of a vessel from Boston bringing Mr. 
Edward Hopkins and his company — was made a prominent 
topic of observation in the Thanksgiving Sermon, preached 



20/^,157. 

21 Winthrop, i, 281. 

^Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxvi, 207. 

^Drake's Mather's Early Nezv England, p. 15S. 



1636-1647-] PEQUOT WAR. 95 

by Mr. Hooker, on October 4th of this year, 1638, from 
the text, I Samuel, vii, 12 : " Then Samuel took a stone, and 
set it up between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of 
it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." 24 
In the course of the sermon Mr. Hooker said : 

" In all the creatures and helps that we have in this world, 
labor to go beyond them all, and to see God above and in 
them all. If time would give leave it were not unworthy 
your time to take some examples out of creatures, that you 
may see if God be taken from them what a misery there is. 
Therefore, there is nothing good, if there be not the mercy 
of God ; and therefore see some good more in the creature, 
in all the help you receive from the creature, namely, God 
in it: as men use to do when they draw out the marrow 
out of the bone, and then they will leave the bone unto the 
dogs. Truly, this should be the wisdom, and it is the hap- 
piness of the saints of God. Wicked men have the crea- 
tures, but O, the marrow of the faithfulness and truth, that 
doth God dispense unto his ! Be sure to look unto that ; 
have thou the God! And take thou the God of wealth — 
leave thou the bone unto the covetous man. Take thou the 
God of honor — leave the bone unto the ambitious man. 
Have thou the God of pleasure, — and leave the bone unto 
the voluptuous man. This is the happiness of a godly man ; 
to take God out of the creature and let not the creature come 
near his heart 

" It was a sad, sharp winter with us in these western parts, 
that many lost their lives, not only cattle, but men. But the 
Lord delivered us. Men concluded it, many affirmed it, 
never any vessel came to these parts; but the Lord brought 
it safe. Nay, if you had heard what a battle of men's tongues 
there was against it ; why, the merchant that brought it, the 



24 The sermon was transcribed (possibly from Mr. Hooker's notes, and possi- 
bly from short-hand notes of his own) by Deacon Matthew Grant of Windsor ; 
and a portion of it, copied from his painfully difficult manuscript by Dr. J. H. 
Trumbull, was published in the Hartford Evening Press, of Nov. 28, i860, from 
which the extracts above are taken. 



9 6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

master that guided it, the passengers that freighted it, it was 
the Lord, brethren, that brought it, it was the Lord that 
guided it ; and truly, had it not been for the Lord we might 
have perished. Yea, we might have perished for want ; but 
the Lord sent us, as it were, drink out of the rock and meat 
from the ravens, — the Indians, that they should bring provi- 
sion and leave it here ; it was the Lord that brought it ! 
"t hat a company of poor men should with a boat fall upon 
such a place, and then prepare for others' coming, — it was 
the Lord that did it ! If anything could have hindered, 
either by truth or falsehood, to keep men from corning to 
these parts hitherto, it had been done ; but yet, notwithstand- 
ing, men's minds informed, their consciences convicted, their 
hearts persuaded to come and to plant. It is the Lord's 
doing, because his mercy endureth forever ! 

" The time unseasonable, the winter hard, the corn grown 
not, — we could not expect but that the hand of the Lord was 
gone out against us ; and truly, it may be it was so. O, it 
was because the mercy of the Lord endureth forever, that 
the Lord hath preserved us, — against the malice of devils, 
the envy of men, and the perverseness of those which seemed 

to fear God Let us, when we have seen the Lord in 

all, — the Lord in the sending of the ship and we not aware 
of it, — the Lord in bringing us safe, in giving us provisions, 
.... labour to have a heart more near unto Him, more 
endeared unto him. In all those dealings of His, every 
expression of God's providence, it should have a touch or a 
turn, as it were, upon the soul, to draw the heart toward 
him. Like as it is with a loadstone, if you apply it much 
and rub it long upon a loadstone, — as it is in the point of a 
compass, — it will turn north and stand north ; and the deeper 
the impression is, the more nimbly it stirs itself, and the 

longer it stands northward All outward comforts we 

should use as men when that they make a mount, it is to 
ascend higher ; we should make a mound, and be nearer to 
God by these, that something of a heaven, of a God may 
come into our hearts. The younger bird, when she comes 



1636-1647-] THE HUTCHINSON AFFAIR. gy 

out of her nest, every branch is a step to her, till she comes 
to the top. So, from step to step, let thy soul go, till it 
comes wholly unto God." 

But not even the exigencies of war and threatened famine 
could divert the attention of those early planters of the 
churches in the wilderness from questions of theology. On 
the 5th of August, following the Pequot slaughter in May, 
Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone arrived in Boston to attend an 
ecclesiastical Synod upon the difficulties which had arisen 
in the Bay Colony, and especially in the Boston church, by 
reason of the peculiar notions of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and 
her brother-in-law, Rev. Mr. Wheelwright. Mr. Ludlow, Mr. 
Pynchon, and others, who carried the Pequot skins and scalps 
with them, went also as delegates on the same business. 

The trouble had begun a considerable time previous. Mrs. 
Hutchinson joined the Boston church on November 2, 1634. 
At that time some objection was made to the opinions she 
held and had expressed on the voyage over. 25 But, she 
seems to have had in that transaction, as well as in 
some other of her earlier procedures, the support of Mr. 
Cotton, who had stood in a pastoral relation to her in Eng- 
land. Her husband is described as being a suitable man for 
a strong-minded woman, "a man of very mild temper and 
weak parts, and wholly guided by his wife." She was soon 
followed to this country by her brother-in-law, John Wheel- 
wright, whom it was speedily proposed to associate with Mr. 
Wilson and Mr. Cotton in the care of the Boston church ; 
a project, however, which failed. Mrs. Hutchinson was a 
woman of kind heart, quick wits, and persuasive address. 
Her visitations of the sick, and ministrations, especially in 
the maternal exigencies of her sex, won for her the affection 



25 Hutchinson, ii, 488, 493-4. 



q8 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

and sympathy of many. She soon established a kind of 
weekly conference, or Bible-reading as it would now be 
called, at which she gathered a large number of women and 
unfolded her peculiar views, and criticised the ministers, with 
the exception of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wheelwright. 

Her peculiar views, Winthrop says, were, " that the person 
of the Holy Ghost dwells in a justified one ; that no sancti- 
fication can help to evidence to us our justification." 2 " The 
language is archaic in modern ears, but the idea is, that a 
kind of incarnation of the Holy Ghost exists in every Chris- 
tian, and that every man's evidence that he is a Christian is 
an immediate perception of that fact, and not at all any 
improvement of his character. Mrs. Hutchinson's doctrine 
was that to look to any signs, like love of the truth or the 
transformation of the conduct, as tokens that a man was a 
saved man, was to be under a " covenant of works." 
The " covenant of grace " demanded that every Christian 
should know he was a saved man by an immediate intuition 
or disclosure of the fact. 

These notions, as Winthrop says, had "many branches." 
They led out into exaggerated ideas of the possibility of 
present revelations, and into depreciated conceptions of the 
moral virtues. They prompted naturally to contemptuous 
estimates of the value of learning in religious matters, and to 
exalted claims to immediate inspiration. The seed fell into 
heated soil. The whole community was alive with the excite- 
ment. Some were intoxicated with the joys of personal 
assurance of salvation ; some, wanting the declared indis- 
pensable illumination, were overwhelmed with despair. One 
woman of the Boston congregation, in particular, long 
troubled with doubts, was driven to distraction, and threw 



Winthrop, i, 239. 



1636-1647.] THE HUTCHINSON AFFAIR. 99 

her child into a well, saying, " Now she was sure she should 
be damned." 27 

The partisans of Mrs. Hutchinson were cheered by the 
support of the young Governor, Henry Vane, and by the sup- 
posed sympathy of Mr. Cotton ; and they rejoiced in pro- 
claiming themselves the representatives of a peculiarly free 
and full gospel. They claimed that under the direct en- 
lightenment of the Spirit, their women and unlettered men 
preached better than the " black coats " taught in the " Nin- 
nyversity" — a designation whose feminine and Hutchinso- 
nian origin it is impossible to question. The matter divided 
households, and entered into politics. The Hutchinson 
party looked coldly on the efforts to assist Connecticut in the 
Pequot war, alleging that the Massachusetts " officers and 
soldiers were too much under a covenant of works." 

The churches of the entire Colony were turmoiled. That 
of Boston, in particular, was nearly rent asunder. The pas- 
tor, Mr. Wilson, supported by Mr. Winthrop and a few others, 
was on the one side ; Mr. Cotton and the majority of the 
church on the other. A meeting of the Court in December, 
1636, called together the ministers and elders to consider the 
troubles. 28 Mr. Wilson charged the difficulty on the spread 
of the new Hutchinsonian opinions. Whereupon, his church, 
led by Mr. Cotton, his associate, summoned him to answer for 
it publicly. 29 

A general fast was observed on the 19th of January, 1637, 
in view of the " dissension in the churches " and other evils. 

Mr. Wheelwright took advantage of the occasion to cen- 
sure the holders of anti-Hutchinsonian views as " Anti- 
christs." The Court judged him to be guilty of sedition. 



i Ibid t \ t 281. 

28 Winthrop, i, 248. 

29 Ibid, 250. 



I0 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

The Boston church tendered a petition in his behalf. 30 The 
excitement was so great it was determined to hold the 
next Court of Election away from Boston, at Newtown. 
At that next Assembly, which was on the 17th of May — just 
as the Massachusetts and Connecticut soldiers were drawing 
near to the Pequot encampment — matters came near to phy- 
sical violence. 31 Mr. Wilson, the pastor of the Boston church, 
climbed a tree in the field where the voters were assembled, 
and addressed them from among the branches. 32 The whole 
question of officers for the Colony turned on the Hutchin- 
sonian views. The result showed that the sympathizers, 
though many, were in a minority. Governor Vane lost his 
election, and soon returned to England. 

His defeat and departure removed one strong pillar of the 
delusion. Cooler counsels began to prevail. A day of 
humiliation was appointed in the churches for the 24th of 
July. So that, by the coming of August, matters were in a 
better condition for deliberate consideration. In April pre- 
vious, Mr. Hooker had written to Mr. Shepard of Newtown 
— who in the October following was to become his son-in-law 
— advising against a Council on the Hutchinsonian matters. 33 
But either he had changed his views, or the state of things 
had changed, for we have seen that he and Mr. Stone and 
the delegates arrived in Boston on the 5 th of August. The 
time, till August 30th, was spent in preliminary consulta- 
tions, and the 24th was observed as a day of fasting and 
prayer. 34 



30 Ibid, 258. 

31 Ibid, 262. 

32 Hutchinson, i, 61, note. 

33 Hutchinson, i, 68. 
84 Winthrop, i, 282. 



1636-1647.] THE HUTCHINSON AFFAIR. IO i 

The Synod opened its sessions on the 30th of August. It 
was composed of all the teaching elders in the country, about 
twenty-five in number, and delegates from the churches. Mr. 
Shepard opened the session with a " heavenly prayer." Rev. 
Peter Bulkley, of Concord, and Mr. Hooker, of Hartford, 
were chosen Moderators. The sessions continued twenty- 
two days. As a result of the deliberations, a list of eighty- 
two opinions, more or less intimately connected with the 
recent controversy, were condemned as, "some blasphemous, 
others erroneous, and all unsafe." 35 

It was further resolved, with special reference to Mrs. 



35 Winthrop, i, 284. Some of these condemned opinions are curious enough, 
and some, though phrased in antique style, are applicable enough to modern 
times to justify a reproduction of a few of them here. 

" 4. That those that bee in Christ are not under the law and commands of 
the Word, as the rule of life." 

" 20. That to call in question whether God be my deare Father, after or 
upon the commission of some hainous sinnes (as murther, incest, etc.), doth 
prove a man to be in the covenant of works." 

" 36. All the activity of a beleever is to act to sinne." 

" 39. The due search and knowledge of the Holy Scripture is not a safe and 
sure way of finding Christ." 

" 40. There is a testimony of the Spirit, and voyce unto the soule, meerely 
immediate, without any respect unto or concurrence with the Word." 

"43. The Spirit acts most in the saints when they indevour least." 

"47. The seale of the Spirit is limited onely to the immediate witnesse of 
the Spirit, and doth never witnesse to any worke of grace, or to any conclusion 
by a syllogisme." 

" 56. A man is not effectually converted till he hath full assurance." 

" 57. To take delight in the holy service of God is to go a whoring from 
God." 

" 62. It is a dangerous thing to close with Christ in a promise." 

" 64. A man must take no notice of his sinne, nor of his repentance for his 
sinne." 

" 70. Frequency or length of holy duties, or trouble of conscience for neglect 
thereof, are all signes of one under a covenant of workes." 

" 72. It is a fundamentall and soule-damning errour to make sanctification 
an evidence of justification." 

" 77. Sanctification is so farre from evidencing a good estate, that it darkens 
it rather ; and a man may more clearely see Christ when he seeth no sanctifica- 
tion than when he doth ; the darker my sanctification is, the brighter is my 
justification." 



I0 2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

Hutchinson's Bible-reading meetings, that though females, 
meeting "some few together" for prayer and edification 
might be allowed, yet that " a set assembly where sixty 
or more did meet every week, and one woman took upon 
her the whole exercise," was "disorderly and without rule." 3e 

The Assembly broke up on the 22d of September, and on 
the following 26th, Mr. Davenport, afterward of New Haven, 
preached by its appointment a sermon of gratulation and 
good counsel. The expenses of the delegates at Newtown 
and in travel from Connecticut were paid at the Colonial 
charge. 37 And so Mr. Hooker and Mr. Stone had chance 
to go back to Hartford, after more than two months absence, 
during which time, doubtless, Ruling-Elder Goodwin had 
" exercised by way of prophesy " in their place. 

Poor Mrs. Hutchinson, the enthusiastic, kind-hearted, 
pious, and very erroneous cause of all these disturbances, 
was soon after called before the Court for continuing her 
" disorderly " meetings and promulgating her condemned 
opinions. She was, awhile, committed to Mr. Cotton's care 
to be reasoned with by him and Mr. Davenport; but when 
was ever woman so convinced ? With her sex's ability to 
turn a sharp corner, not to say to prevaricate, she said some- 
times one thing and sometimes another. So that on the 
15th May, 1638, she was excommunicated from the church 
for " impenitently persisting in a manifest lye," and on the 
28th, was banished from the Colony. 38 The exiled woman, 
whom the eye of modern sympathy follows with regret, soon 
after became a widow ; moved to the Dutch frontier ; and was, 
about six years later, with all her children but one of eight 
years, killed by the Indians. Her views were exaggerated 



30 Winthrop, i, p. 286. 

»7 Ibid, 288. 

38 Ibid, 310-31 1. 



1636-1647-] FUNDAMENTAL LAWS. I0 3 

and false, and her procedures, in the condition of the times, 
exasperating and probably dangerous, but it may be hoped 
and believed that Heaven was wide enough for her after all. 

Returned to Hartford, the Pastor and Teacher doubtless 
took their due share in the stirring interests of the town and 
Colony. It was in the spring after this return that the first 
steps for the new meeting-house, before spoken of, to take 
the place of the temporary structure they now used, were 
set forward. The same year, 1638, witnessed the prelim- 
inary proceedings, very imperfectly recorded, of one of the 
most interesting events in all civil history — the establish- 
ment of a written constitution for the government of the 
Colony; the " first written constitution," it has been called, 
"in the history of nations." 30 

The common affairs of these towns along the River had 
at first been conducted by a provisional government under 
Massachusetts authority. But the term of that commission 
having expired, a General Court of the towns took its place. 
At some time in 1638 a General Court was elected for the 
purpose of framing a body of laws for the permanent govern- 
ment of the Colony. The deliberations of the assembly thus 
chosen have perished. We know only the result, which 
arrived at the authority of Fundamental Laws on the 14th of 
January, 1639. 40 

That charter of public rule was a document far in 
advance of anything the world had ever seen, in its recogni- 
tion of the origin of all civil authority as derived, under 
God, from the agreement and covenant of the whole body 
of the governed. Such a " Combination and Confederation 
together ... to be guided and governed according to such 



39 Bacon's General Conference Address, p. 150. 

40 Col. Records, i, p. 25. 



IQ 4 TH E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 636-1647. 

Lavves, Rules, Orders, and decrees as shall be made, ordered 
& decreed," 11 marks a reckoning point in the history and 
science of government. 42 

But the chief interest in this matter, so far as the present 
chronicle is concerned, is not a scientific one, or even a 
historic one, reckoned from the point of the concerns of 
civil administration only. The interest of the subject, as 
connected with this Church survey, now in hand, is two fold : 
It is, first, that the form of civil government here established 
was simply an extension to the domain of secular affairs of 
the principles already adopted in religious matters — the 
mutual covenant and agreement of those associated, as under 
God the ultimate law. And, second, and more particularly, 
because of' the agency in leading on to the establishment of 



41 Ibid, p. 21. 

42 Too much, however, must not be inferred from this statement. The 
" whole body of the governed " was not understood to include all sorts of men. 
The General Court, in August, 1657, passed the following order : " This Court 
being duly sencible of the danger this Comonwealth is in of being poisoned in 
their iudgm* & principles by some loathsome Heretickes, whether Quakers, 
Ranters, Adamites, or some others like them, It is ordered and decreed that 
noe Towne or person therein w tb in this Jurisdiction shall give any vnnecessary 
entertainm t to any of the aforesaid known e hereticks, vpon penalty of five 
pounds for each Hereticque enterteined, to bee paid by that inhabitant which 
gieus such entertainment to them or either of them, & hue pounds a weeke for 
each Hereticke, to bee paid by each Towne that shall suffer the entertainm' of 
any such Hereticks, as also 5/. a person that shall vnnecessarily speake more 
or lesse w th any of the aforesaid Hereticks, except the Magistrate, Assistants, 
Eld rs or Constable in this Jurisdiction; all w ch fines to bee paid to the publicke 
Treasury. Also, it is ordered, that any Magistrate, Assistant or Constable, in 
each plantation vpon any suspicion of any person to bee such an Hereticke, 
shall, with the helpe of their Eld 1 ' or Eld ,s in each plantation examine the said 
suspected person or persons, & if vpon examination hee or they judge any to 
bee such Heretickes, the said Magistrate, Assistants or Constable shall forthw th 
send them to prizon, or out of this Jurisdiction." Col. Kec, p. 303, vol. i. The 
modern idea of toleration of religious dissent must not be looked for too early. 
The union of Church and State was as complete in early New England as it 
was in Old England. The type of ecclesiastic rule was altered, but the State 
was looked to, to back up the new type as efficiently as in the home land it had 
the old. Hence " Heretiques" had no recognized place in the "Combination 
and Confederation." 



1636 1647. j FUNDAMENTAL LAWS. IO r 

this principle in the Fundamental Laws of this Colony, of 
the wise and far-sighted Pastor of this Church. We are 
indebted for the discovery of definite evidence of this agency 
— though it might have been antecedently conjectured from 
all that we know of the man who exercised it — to the skill 
and research of the distinguished antiquarian scholar, J. H. 
Trumbull. 43 The evidence lay undiscovered more than two 
and a quarter centuries in a little, almost undecipherable 
volume of manuscript, written by a young man — Mr. Henry 
Wolcott, jr., born January, 1610 — in the neighbor town of 
Windsor. The volume contains notes in cipher of sermons 
and lectures preached by Rev. Messrs. Warham and Huit 
of Windsor, and Rev. Messrs. Hooker and Stone of Hart- 
ford. In it is found an abstract of Mr. Hooker's lecture 
given on "Thursday, May 31, 1638, at an adjourned session, 
probably of the April Court ; and apparently designed to 
lead the way to the general recognition of the great truths 
which were soon to be successfully incorporated in the 
Fundamental Laws." 44 The following is the deciphered 
abstract of the sermon : 

Text: Deut. i, 13. "Take you wise men, and understand- 
ing, and known among your tribes, and I will make them 
rulers over you." Captains over thousands, and captains 
over hundreds — over fifties — -over tens, etc. 

DocUine. I. That the choice of public magistrates belongs 
unto the people by God's own allowance. 

II. The privilege of election which belongs unto the 
people, therefore, must not be exercised according to their 
humors, but according to the blessed will and law of God. 

III. They who have power to appoint officers and magis- 



i3 See Dr. Trumbull's account of the matter. Conn. Historical Soc. Col., 
vol. i, 19. 

44 Ibid, pp. 19, 20. 
14 



I0 6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

trates, it is in their power, also, to set the bounds of the 
power and place unto which they call them. 

Reasons. 1. Because the foundation of authority is laid, 
firstly, in the free consent of the people. 

2. Because, by a free choice the hearts of the people will 
be more inclined to the love of the persons [chosen], and 
more ready to yield [obedience]. 

3. Because of that duty and engagement of the people. 
Uses. The lesson taught is threefold : — 

1st. There is matter of thankful acknowledgment in the. 
[appreciation] of God's faithfulness towards us and the per- 
mission of these measures that God doth commend and 
vouchsafe. 

2dly. Of reproof — to dash the conceits of all those that 
shall oppose it. 

3dly. Of exhortation — to persuade us as God hath given 
us liberty, to take it. 

And lastly. As God hath spared our lives, and given us 
them in liberty, so to seek the guidance of God, and to 
choose in God and for God. 45 

The doctrine was adapted to the auditors and to the time. 
It was harmonious with the experiences and the teachings of 
Providence in which the hearers had been led. But its 
statement was a novelty in politics, not the less. Dr. Bacon 
says of it: "That sermon by Thomas Hooker from the 
pulpit of the First Church in Hartford, is the earliest known 
suggestion of a fundamental law, enacted not by royal charter, 
nor by concession from any previously existing government, 
but by the people themselves — a primary and supreme law 
by which the government is constituted, and which not only 
provides for the free choice of magistrates by the people, but 
also 'sets the bounds and limitations of the power and place 
to which' each magistrate is called." 40 



45 Ibid, pp. 20-21. 

46 Centennial Conference Address, pp. 152-153. 



1636-1647.] EARLY EVENTS. i y 

Eight months later, the fundamental laws embodying these 
principles for the first time in human history, were " sentenced, 
ordered, and decreed." It is impossible not to recognize the 
Master hand. The Pastor of the Hartford Church was Con- 
necticut's great Legislator, also. 

In the May following the adoption of this Constitution by 
Connecticut, Mr. Hooker and Mr. Haynes, 47 the Governor of 
the Colony, were in Boston, on the business of securing a 
treaty of confederation with Massachusetts ; remaining there 
"near a month." 48 It was during this visit to the Bay that 
this curious incident occurred, which is recorded by Winthrop : 
" Mr. Hooker being to preach at Cambridge, the governour 
[Winthrop] and many others went to hear him, (though the 
governour did very seldom go from his own congregation upon 
the Lord's Day). He preached in the afternoon, and having 
gone on, with much strength of voice and intention of spirit, 
about a quarter of an hour, he was at a stand, and told the 
people that God had deprived him both of his strength and 
matter, etc., and so went forth, and about half an hour 
after returned again, and went on* to very good purpose 
about two hours." 49 

The same year, 1639, saw the organization of the church 
at New Haven, on the 22d of August. Tradition has it that 
at the subsequent induction of Mr. Davenport as pastor, Mr. 
Hooker and Mr. Stone were present as representatives of 
the Hartford church, and took part in the services. 50 



47 John Haynes came to New England in the Griffin, with Mr. Hooker. He 
had a residence at Copford Hall, in Essex, England, and was a man of large 
wealth. He was chosen Governor of Massachusetts in 1635. He came to 
Connecticut in 1637. After the organization of the government in 1639, under 
the Fundamental Laws, he was chosen governor, and was chosen every alternate 
year afterwards till his death, in 1653. 

48 Winthrop, i, 360. 

49 Ibid, 366. 

50 Trumbull, i, 285. 



108 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

In the paucity of personal incidents recoverable in these 
early days, it may not be amiss to notice that in 1641 Mr. 
Stone, the Teacher, brought home from Boston with him a 
wife, dismissed by letter to this church from the church 
there, on the 25th of July. 51 In view of which exigent expe- 
rience on the Teacher's part it was, probably, that the town 
voted, at about that time, that "there shall be five pounds 
added to Mr. Stone for this half year." 52 So, too, there came 
this year into the membership of this church the only person, 
probably, ever connected with it who popularly wore a title 
of English rank — Lady Fenwick, as she is called. 53 She 
brought her young child with her for baptism, and found her 
premature grave, four years after, at Saybrook. 54 

A little later than this appears on the public records of 
the Colony 55 one of the earliest of those instances of the 



51 Boston First Church Records: "Mrs. Elizabeth Stone, formerly called 
Mrs. Eliza Allen, but now the wife of Mr. Samuel Stone, the teacher of the 
Church of Hartford, in Conn., was granted letters of recommendation thither." 
This lady was the ancestress of several present members of the First Church in 
Hartford. Mr. Stone had been married before ; his first wife dying in 1640 
(see Mr. Hooker's letter to Shepard, of Nov. 2, 1640), having, as Mr. Hooker 
says, " smoaked out her days in the darkness of melancholy." Who she was, or 
what she suffered beyond this sad memorial, or whether she came with Mr. 
Stone from England, as is probable, is matter of conjecture. 

52 Town Records. 

53 Lechford's Plaine Dealing, Trumbull's Ed., p. 98. Mrs. George Fenwick was 
the daughter of Sir Edward Apsley, and had been the widow of Sir John 
Boteler. And so, as wife of Mr. George Fenwick, she, by a quite liberal cour- 
tesy, was called Lady Fenwick. She so appears in local traditions, and her 
monument at Saybrook is looked on with a certain romance from the popular 
designation. See Dr. J. H. Trumbull's address at the re-interment of Lady 
Fenwick's remains. Hist. Mag., vol. xix, p. 151. 

54 She joined the Hartford church because none was then in existence at 
Saybrook. One was founded there in 1646, and Mr. James Fitch, who had 
studied divinity with Mr. Hooker, was made Pastor. The tradition is that, 
though Mr. Hooker was present, ordination was given by laying on the hands 
of two or three of the brethren designated by the church for the purpose. 
Trumbull, i, 286. 

55 Col. Records, vol. i, pp. 106, III. 



1636-1647.] ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. i g 

interference of the civil government with the ecclesiastical 
procedures of churches, so foreign to our present view of the 
appropriate boundaries of the jurisdiction of each, but which 
we shall have occasion to see were so characteristic of Con- 
necticut's history for more than a hundred years. 

Mathew Allyn, a prominent inhabitant and an original set- 
tler, petitioned the General Court, June 3, 1644, against the 
sentence of excommunication pronounced against him by the 
Church at Hartford. The nature of Mr. Allyn's offence 
does not appear, but it seems not to have forfeited him the 
good esteem of his townsmen, who elected him many fol- 
lowing years to public trusts. Nevertheless the Court judged 
that in so petitioning against the Church Mr. Allyn "layd an 
accusation vppon the Church" which he was bound to prove, 
and called on him to do so. He had not done so by the 25th 
of October following, whereupon the Court reiterated its 
demand for proof, and summoned him to answer for his con- 
tempt, in neglecting the previous order. 56 How Mr. Allyn 
succeeded in settling his difficulties does not appear. 

This efficient backing up of church-discipline by the civil 
government was, however, a significant illustration of the 
vague views of the founders as to that principle of separa- 
tion of Church and State, which has become elementary in 
modern thought in this country. 

Meantime events were moving on in England. The Par- 
liament, known as the Long Parliament, was in session. 
Laud, who had been the chief agent in driving out of the 
old country a considerable portion of the ministers in New 
England, was put in prison in 1641. The issue between 
King and Parliament was made. One or the other was to 
break. 



66 Ibid, 106, ill. 



HO THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

The ecclesiastical constitution of things, disordered by the 
conflicting judgments of the various parties in religious 
affairs, was sorely in need of healing. Presbyterianism, Inde- 
pendency, and Episcopalianism were forms of ecclesiastical 
rule, vigorously contended for, though with very unequal 
numerical following. In this state of things a General 
Assembly was ordered by Parliament, 57 and, being contem- 
plated, the American exiles were not forgotten. A letter 
from the Earl of Warwick, Lord Say and Seal, Oliver Crom- 
well, and some thirty-seven other members of Parliament, 
" who stood for the independency of the churches," was sent 
to New England, inviting Mr. Cotton, Mr. Hooker, and Mr. 
Davenport to " assist in the Synod." 5 Mr. Cotton and Mr. 
Davenport were inclined to go. Mr. Hooker discerned the 
relative numerical weakness of the Independent party in Eng- 
land, and with characteristic sagacity thought it unwise " to 
go 3,000 miles to agree with three men (meaning those min- 
isters who were for independency.) " 59 Other letters, arriving 
soon after, advised against the coming, and the matter fell 
through, justifying the wisdom of Mr. Hooker's first opinion. 

This Assembly, which has passed into history as the West- 
minster Assembly, was preponderantly Presbyterian, and the 
Presbyterian party grew stronger as the Assembly advanced. 



57 As early as 1641 the London ministers proposed to Parliament the calling 
of an Assembly, and in December, 1641, the Commons mentioned it among 
the complaints in their Grand Remonstrance. A bill was passed for the pur- 
pose,October 15, 1642, but failed for want of the Royal assent. The final order for 
it, without the King's concurrence, was June 12, 1643. The King, by procla- 
mation, forbade the meeting, and threatened to deprive of their livings those 
who disobeyed. This substantially prevented the " loyal " portion of the 
Episcopalians from attending. The Assembly met July 1, 1643, an( ^ closed 
February 22, 1649, holding, in all, eleven hundred and sixty-three sessions. 

58 Winthrop, ii, 91-92. 

59 The " three men " in the Assembly " who stood for independency " were, 
in fact, five from the outset, Thomas Goodwin, Philip Nye, Jeremiah Bur- 
roughs, William Bridge, and Sydrach Simpson. As the sessions went on their 
numbers doubled. But they were in a hopeless minority. 



1636-1647.]' ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. m 

This was not without its effect over here in New England. 
It gave new vigor and encouragement to a few ministers in 
the Massachusetts Colony, whose views were in accordance 
with that form of polity, more than with the " Congregational 
way" around them. The two admirable ministers of the 
church in Newbury, Mass. — Thomas Parker, the pastor, and 
James Noyes, the teacher — strongly sympathized with most 
of the Presbyterian principles, and did not scruple to preach 
their opinions. 

Fearful of the spread of dissensions, which had already 
arisen in the Newbury Church, 6 ' 1 it was deemed best to 
hold a Synod at Cambridge to emphasize the Congregational 
principles. The Synod met in September 1643, an d was 
composed of " all the elders in the country," about fifty in 
number. Here again, as in the Synod of 1637, Mr. Hooker 
was one of the two moderators. His associate at this time 
was Mr. Cotton. The members sat in " the college, and 
had their diet there after the manner of scholars' commons, 
but somewhat better, yet so ordered that it came not above 
sixpence the meal for a person. .... The assembly con- 
cluded against some parts of the presbyterial way, and the 
Newbury ministers took time to consider the arguments.'' 61 

But apparently the conclusions arrived at were not com- 
prehensive enough or deliberate enough to be regarded as 
satisfactory. The party of Presbyterianism in the Westmin- 
ster Assembly, still in session, was growing ; Parliament was 
obviously moving on to the adoption of Presbyterianism as 
the established religion of England ; and there was danger 



60 Coffin's History of Newbury, pp. 72, 115. 

61 Winthrop, ii, 165. The " Newbury ministers " were not convinced, as 
is shown in the pamphlet published by Mr. Noyes some years afterward, enti- 
tled " The Temple Measured; " a Presbyterian treatise save in the matter of 
ruling elders, who are not recognized as " distinct officers in the churches." 



H2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

that if so established it would be imposed by authority on 
New England as well. It was time to come to a definite 
agreement against such a not improbable event. 

A meeting 62 was convened at Cambridge, July 1, 1645, at 
which it was agreed to send over to England for publication 
and reading there, certain treatises in defence of the " Congre- 
gational way," and against the " Presbyterial," which had 
been written by several of the New England ministers, in 
reply to Presbyterian documents sent from England here. 
Among these books were Davenport's answer to Paget, 
known as the Power of Congregational Churches, and Mr. 
Hooker's Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline, in 
reply to Rutherford's Due Right of Presbyteries." 

These books had a curious history. They were sent in 
a vessel which sailed from New Haven, in January 1646, 
with many passengers, and which was never heard from 
afterward, save in that spectral phantom of a ship which, 
two years and five months later, appeared sailing into New 
Haven harbor, and then, in the sight of a crowd of witnesses, 
vanished into smoke. A vision which John Davenport 
declared God had given for the quieting of the afflicted 
spirits of those who wondered where the lost vessel, and its 
precious conveyance of lives, had gone. 63 

Convinced of the loss of the manuscripts, the two authors, 
Davenport and Hooker, re-wrote them — though Hooker his 
with great reluctance — and they were again sent over and 
published ; Hooker's, however, not till after his death. _ 



62 Winthrop's account of this meeting (ii, 304) says " the elders of the 
churches through all the United Colonies agreed upon a meeting at Cambridge 
this day, when they conferred their councils, and examined the writings which 
some of them had prepared .... which, being agreed and perfected, were sent 
over into England to be printed." 

63 Bacon's Historical Discourses, p. 107. 



1636-1647.] ECCLESIASTICAL AFFAIRS. H3 

By May, 1646, the danger of a subversion of the ecclesias- 
tical usages of the Colonies seemed so imminent that the 
Court of Massachusetts moved for a General Synod "to 
discusse, dispute & cleare up by the word of God, such 
questions of Church governm* & discipline," as had been 
before spoken of, and others "as they shall thinke needful & 
meete ; " and invited the ministers and churches of " Plimoth, 
Connecticott & Newe-Haven," on the same terms of "lib r ty 
& pow r of disputing and voting" as the Massachusetts min- 
isters and messengers. 64 The proposition was received with 
general acceptance ; though with demurrer on the part of the 
Boston and Salem churches, and some others, as a trespass 
of the civil authority upon the ecclesiastical domain. 65 But 
most of them finally gave adhesion, and the 1st of September 
found all but four of the Massachusetts churches, and a con- 
siderable number of those from the other Colonies, in session 
at Cambridge, in what is now called, by way of preeminence, 
the Cambridge Synod; the best remembered of all the early 
New England assemblies, and from which the well-known 
Platform of Church Polity receives its name. 

Mr. Hooker, however, was not there. His colleague, Mr. 
Stone, was present, and Dea. Edward Stebbins, whom Mr. 
Hooker calls "my cousin Stebbings"; but the Pastor was 
absent. He had written to his son-in-law, Shepard, the 
month before, "My yeares and infirmityes grow so fast vpon 
me, y t wholly disenable me to so long a journey ; and because 
I cannot come myself, I provoke as many elders as I can to 
lend their help and presence. The Lord Christ be in the 
midest among you by his guidance and blessing." 66 



04 Mass. Col. Rec, ii, 155. 
65 Winthrop, ii, 329-332. 
66 Felt, Eccl. Hist.,!, 613. 
15 



H4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

Mr. Hooker had made the journey from Hartford to Boston 
and back, on public business, certainly three times, and prob- 
ably four or more. 6 ! It was still a roadless wilderness, to be 
traversed only on horseback ; with a nightly encampment on 
the ground, under the open skies, by the way. It is not 
strange that, interested though he was in the Synod, he 
shrank from the repeated pilgrimages. 

The assembly continued in session, at this time, only a 
fortnight. It appointed three of its members to draw up a 
Scriptural Model of Church Government, and adjourned till 
June 8th of the following year, 1647. 

Regathered at that date, it was almost immediately forced 
to adjourn again 68 by reason of an "epidemical sickness" 
which prevailed over the whole country, " among Indians and 
English, French and Dutch." 69 

The blow fell hard, here in Hartford. Many of the citizens 
of the town died of it. But its most shining mark was the 
Pastor of the Church. Mr. Winthrop, in the simple, noble 
language of his diary, records: "That which made the 
stroke more sensible and grievous, both to them [of Con- 
necticut] and to all the country was the death of that faithful 
servant of the Lord, Mr. Thomas Hooker, pastor of the 
church in Hartford, who, for piety, prudence, wisdom, zeal, 
learning, and what else might make him serviceable in the 



67 In August, 1637; in May, 1639; in September, 1643; anc *> probably, July 
1645. See Winthrop, i, 281, 360; ii, 165 and 304. 

68 It re-assembled August 15, 164S, and adopted, after a fortnight's delibera 
tion, substantially, the draft of a Platform presented by Rev. Richard Mather 
The result of the synod was next year " presented to the Churches and Generall 
Court for their acceptance and consideration in the Lord." In October, 1649, 
the Court commended it "to the judicyous and pious consideracon of the sen 
erall churches." The principles of this Cambridge Platform are, or ought to 
be, so well known among Congregationalists, as not to need explanation here 

69 Winthrop says about this distemper (ii, 378): "It took them like a cold 
and a light fever with it. Such as bled or used cooling drinks, died; those who 
took comfortable things, for the most part, recovered, and that in a few days, 



1636-1647-] HOOKER'S DEATH. H^ 

place and time he lived in, might be compared with men 
of greatest note; and he shall need no other praise: the 
fruits of his labors in both Englands shall preserve an 
honorable and happy remembrance of him forever." 70 The 
wise and eloquent eulogy needs no amplification. 

Mr. Stone arrived home from the dispersed Synod in 
season to see his associate die. He already " looked like a 
dying man," Mr. Stone writes to Shepard, but he had said to 
Mr. Goodwin that "his peace was made in heaven and had 
continued 30 years without alteration." T1 

To one weeping by his bedside who said to him, "Sir, you 
are going to receive the reward of all your labors," he replied, 
"Brother, I am going to receive mercy." " He closed his eyes 
with his own hands, and gently stroking his own forehead, 
with a smile in his countenance, . . . expired his blessed 
soul into the arms of his fellozv servants, the holy angels, on 
July 7, 1647." 7 ' 2 

His age was sixty-one years. He died, it is said, on the 
anniversary of his birth. He made a Will the day he died, 
in which he left directions for the guidance of his household, 
and for the custody and publication of his manuscripts ; 
entrusting his "beloved friends, Mr. Edward Hopkins and 
Mr. William Goodwyn," with the care of the " education and 
dispose" of his children and of the management of his 
estate. 73 His mortal part lies mouldered to dust just back of 
this church edifice. 74 His soul is with the just, and his 
memory is that of one of the best and greatest of men. 



70 ibid. 

71 Letter dated July 19, 1647. Mass. Hist. Coll., 4, viii, 544. 

72 Magnalia, i, 317. 

73 See Appeyidix II, for Mr. Hooker's Will and Inventory of Estate. 

74 The monument which is supposed to mark the burial place of Rev. Mr. 
Hooker in the burying-ground back of the First Church, was put in its present 
position in 18 18. At that time the slab now resting on the four upright posts 



H6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1636-1647. 

As is natural, the death of so eminent a leader of the little 
commonwealth prompted the remembrance by survivors of 
portents and supernatural tokens of it. The event occurred 
in the midseason of a pestilential summer, when languor and 
oppression in the probably crowded and ill-ventilated pre- 
cincts of the small meeting-house might have been expected. 
But looking back upon it, " some of his most observant 
hearers observed an astonishing sort of cloud in his congre- 
gation, the last Lord's day of his publick ministry, when he 
also administered the Lord's Supper among them ; and a most 
unaccountable heaviness and sleepiness, even in the most 
watchful Christians of the place, not unlike the drowsiness 
of the disciples when our Lord was going to die ; for which 
one of the elders publickly rebuked them. When those 
devout people afterwards perceived that this was the last 
sermon and sacrament wherein they were to have the pres- 
ence of the pastor with them, 'tis inexpressible how much 
they bewailed their unattentiveness unto his farewell dis- 
pensations ; and some of them could enjoy no peace in their 
own souls until they had obtained leave of the elders to 
confess before the whole congregation, with many tears, that 
inadvertency." 75 



was lying unmarked upon the ground; either never having had an inscription, 
or the inscription (an improbable suggestion) having been worn away. As the 
result of a motion of Mr. Seth Terry, in Society meeting, Dec. 22, 181 7, the 
stone was raised, inscribed, and placed as it now is. The inscription was writ- 
ten by Mr. Terry, and the antique style of spelling and lettering was imitated 
from the monument to Mr. Stone, the Teacher of the Church, next beside it. 

Mr. Stone, in his letter to Shepard, giving account of his colleague's death, 
wrote : " If I have the whole winter, you may think whether it may not be 
comely for you & myself & some other Elders to make a few verses for Mr. 
Hooker & inscribe them in the beginning of his book, as if they had been his 
funeral verses. I do but propound it." This design was fulfilled with more 
good will than poetic fire. See Appendix III, for these metrical memorials. 

75 Magnalia, i, 317. 



1 636-1647.] HOOKER'S DEATH. ny 

Whether this last Sabbath and Sacramental service was 
July 4th or June 27th, it is perhaps impossible to determine, 
Mr. Hooker's death occurred on Wednesday, July 7th, " a 
little before sunne-set," which throws the weight of proba- 
bility in favor of the earlier Sunday, especially as there does 
not appear to have been any established usage connecting 
Sacramental services with the first Sunday of the month 
such as now. obtains. 76 

But whether Mr. Hooker preached his last sermon on 
July 4th or June 27th, he preached one on June 20th, at 
Windsor, of which notes remain in the writing of Deacon 
Matthew Grant, of that place, and which consequently was 
delivered on the last Sunday but one or the last Sunday but 
two before he died. Deacon Grant records, at the end of 
the notes, " Mr. Hooker was hurried 18 days after he 
preached this sermon." And although the notes are mani- 
festly imperfect, and inadequately represent the thoughts of 
the preacher, still, as standing in such interesting proximity 
to his departure, and as having never before been published 
they will be given in the later pages of this volume. 77 



76 The usage of the Windsor Church at this time brought Sacramental days 
quite as often on other Sundays than the first of the month, as on that one. 

77 Deacon Matthew Grant's volume is in the possession of Dr. J. H. Trum- 
bull, and the copy of the notes (together with the comments thereon) found in 
Appendix IV, has been kindly furnished by him. 



CHAPTER VI. 



THOMAS HOOKER'S WRITINGS. 

Books, numbering some thirty titles, are extant of Mr. 
Hooker's published writings. Yet he was not to any great 
extent of set purpose an author of books. Most of his vol- 
umes are collections of discourses on experimental religion, 
whose first and main use was in the oral delivery, and whose 
object was the immediately practical one of impressing, con- 
vincing, and persuading the hearers of his voice. 

Some of these series of discourses were printed from 
notes taken down by short-hand writers who listened to him 
during his Chelmsford Lectureship, or perhaps still earlier at 
Emmanuel ; and even of others, concerning which we have 
the assurance 1 that they are "as they were penned under 
his own hand," or "printed from his own papers, written 
with his own hand," we have no token of editorial revision 
by himself, and little of any intention in their composition 
that they should be printed at all. All his books — unless 
The Poore Doubting Christian be a possible exception — 
being published in England, either during his exile in Hol- 
land, his residence in America, or after his death, he saw 
none of them " through the press " ; and though authorizing 
the issue of some of them, 2 imparted to none the advantage 



1 See Goodwin and Nye's preface and the publisher's announcement to the 
Continent upon Christ' 's Last Prayer and The Application of Redemption. 

' 2 As, e.g., The Equall Wayes of God (1632), to which he wrote a prefatory 
address, signed "T. H." 



1 629-1 647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. ng 

of an author's customary review of the printed page. One 
of them — The Saints Dignitie and Dutie, published in 165 1 
— was compiled by his son-in-law, Thomas Shepard ; two or 
three others — as A Comment upon Ovist's Last Prayer? 
published in 1656, and The Application of Redemption, pub- 
lished in 1659 — were issued under the prefatory supervision 
of Revs. Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye ; and some, per- 
haps, may have been printed from copies of Mr. Hooker's 
discourses made by Rev. John Higginson of Guilford, who 
is said 4 to have " transcribed from his manuscripts near two 
hundred of these excellent sermons, which were sent over 
into England that they might be published; but by what 
means I know not, scarce half of them have seen the light 
unto this day." 5 

Several of the volumes are anonymous, a fact itself sug- 
gestive of a surreptitious possession and use of the materials 
of which they were compiled. 



3 The publication of this volume — A Comment upon Christ's Last Prayer — 
seems to have been more distinctly prepared for by Mr. Hooker than almost 
any other volume, except his Survey. In his Will, signed upon his death-bed, 
he leaves to the benefit of his wife the advantage of " whatever manuscripts 
shall bee judged meete to be printed." But that the manuscript of this special 
series of discourses was already determined on as one thus "judged meete," 
appears from the will of Mr. John Whiting, who, dying in the same epidemical 
sickness as Mr. Hooker, in 1647, na d in the first draft of his will, made in 
March, 1643, provided "to have 20/. paid vnto Mr. Hooker, toward the further- 
ance of setting forth for the benefitt of the church his worke uppon the 17 th of 
John, with any else hee doth intend." See Col. Records, vol. i, 493. 

4 Magnalia, i, 315. 

Prof. Moses Coit Tyler, in his History of American Literature (vol. i, 194) 
tells this amazing story about the fate of some of Mr. Hooker's manuscripts : 
" In 1830, one hundred and eighty-three years after Hooker's death, the old 
parsonage at Hartford was torn down, and in it were found large quantities of 
manuscripts, supposed to have been his. What they were we know not. They 
may have contained letters, diaries, and other invaluable personal and historical 
memoranda ; but there happened to be no one then in the city which Hooker 
founded, to give shelter to these venerable treasures, and to save them from the 
doom of being thrown into the Connecticut River." 



I2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

But though there is some small diversity in the details of 
style and finish, such as this variety of manner in the appear- 
ance of the volumes would suggest, the family likeness is 
unmistakable. They obviously came, whatever verbal blem- 
ish may attach to any of them, from the same mind and pen. 

The one exception to the general rule which assigns Mr. 
Hooker's books to a primary purpose of oral address to his 
hearers, and only an incidental or even unconsidered one 
toward their readers, is his Survey of the Summe of Church 
Discipline. And all the facts concerning this book serve to 
show that authorship, as such, had no attraction for him. 

The Survey was first written, rather reluctantly and under 
much " strength of importunity," 6 at the suggestion of 
others, to be published in England for the counteraction there 
of the growing party of Presbyterianism. Mr. Hooker him- 
self was with difficulty drawn to the service, looking on it 
" as somewhat unsuitable to a Pastor, whose head, and heart, 
and hands were full of the imploiments of his proper place." 7 

And when the first draft of the volume was lost in the 
sea, "if he might have enjoyed the liberty of his own judg- 
ment and desires " he would have left what he had written 
to be "buried in everlasting silence." Being " overborn," 
however, he wrote the treatise anew, "though before the tran- 
scribing, he was translated to be ever with the Lord." 8 

He wrote a Preface to the volume which may well be taken 
to express his views concerning the style of all his writings. 

In it he says, "That the discourse comes forth in such a 
homely dresse, and course habit, the reader must be desired 
to consider, it comes out of the wilderness e, where curiosity 



6 Epistle to the Reader, prefatory to the Survey. 

7 Ibid. 

8 Ibid. 



1629-1647-] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. I2 I 

is not studied. Planters if they can provide cloth to go warm 
they leave the cutts and lace to those that study to go fine. 

" As it is beyond my skill, so I professe it is beyond my 
care to please the nicenesse of men's palates, with any quaint- 
nesse of language. They who covet more sauce then 

meat, they must provide cooks to their minde 

The substance and solidity of the frame is that which 
pleaseth the builder; its the painter's work to provide varnish." 

This disclaimer is in Hooker's genuine style. It is itself 
an illustration of that union of vigor and vivacity which made 
his utterance in the pulpit so arrestive of the most wandering 
or antagonistic attention, and which makes the faded pages 
of his printed books frequently so pungent and picturesque. 

The stories told of Hooker's preaching are striking. One 
is of the presence at one of his Chelmsford lectures of 
some boon companions led by a man, who, for " ungodly diver- 
sion and merriment, said unto his companions, Come, let us 
go hear what that bawling Hooker will say!' " The man had 
not been long in the church before the quick and powerful 
word of God, in the mouth of his faithful Hooker, pierced 
the soul of him ; he came out with an awakened and dis- 
tressed soul, and by the further blessing of God on Mr. Hook- 
er s ministry, he arrived unto a true conversion." Another is 
an incident of his preaching in the " great Church of Lei- 
cester? ten miles west of his humble birth-place at Marfield, 
and while still his parents were living there. One of the town 
burgesses set a company of fiddlers to playing in the church- 
yard. But the fiddlers could" neither drown the preacher nor 
draw away the hearers. Whereupon the burgess went to the 
church-door to hear what it was that so enchained the con- 
gregation. But getting once within sound of that voice, and 
the reach of the barbed arrows of utterance shot from the 

preacher's lips, himself fell down wounded, and " became 
16 



I2 2 TH E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

indeed so penitent a convert, as to be at length a sincere pro- 
fessor 2J\& practicer of the godliness whereof he had been a 
persecutor!' 9 

The reader of Hooker's volumes will easily credit these 
stories. Tradition has it, that he was in person majestic and 
in utterance commanding and persuasive ; but these graces 
were not essential to one who could put things into the 
sharp, vivacious, and infinitely various utterance of these dis- 
courses. 

As to the mass of these writings, they are- — laying aside 
the Survey — essentially on one theme. They are a body, 
not of doctrinal, but of experimental divinity. They relate, 
as has been said, 10 to the "Application of Redemption ; and 
that which eminently fitted him for the handling of those 
principles, was, that he had been from his youth trained up 
in the experience of those humiliations and consolations and 
sacred communions which belong to the new creature." The 
discourses are stated " to have been, and it is inherently pro- 
bable that they were, the result of repeated preachings and 
lecturings upon the experimental aspects of religion, first at 
Cambridge, where he lectured at Emmanuel; afterward at 
Chelmsford, and subsequently in America. He went over 
the ground again and again, and with marvelous minuteness 
and fullness of detail. His volumes are thus — when collec- 
ted in their organic relationship — a development of what 
he conceived the soul's way of seeking, finding, and enjoying 
Christ. Their titles, whether his own or given by others, in- 
dicate distinctly this recognized purpose running through 
them. The Soules Preparation for Christ, The Soules Hu- 



9 Magnalia, i, 306-7. 
X) Magnalia, i, 314. 

11 Ibid, 315. See also Goodwin and Nye's prefatory letter to the Application 
of Redemption. 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. I2 3 

miliation, The Soules Vocation or Effectual Calling, The 
Soules Instification, The Soules Implantation, The Soules 
Vnion zvith Christ, The Soules Benefit from Vnion with 
Christ, The Saints Dignitie and Dutie, — these, among 
others, show clearly the track along which he moved. 

It is the line of thought followed by the pastor rather than 
the theologian. The robustest system of theology is every- 
where implied and incidentally expressed in these discourses, 
but the statement of a system of theology is in none of them, 
or in all of them, an aim. The aim is the persuasion of men. 
And to this purpose the preacher brings a fecundity of mind, 
a power of spiritual anatomy, an amplitude and variousness 
of illustration, and an energy of utterance which are abso- 
lutely marvelous. Especially striking is this wonderfulness 
of resource in analyzing the moral phenomena antecedent 
to, and attendant on conversion. To most modern readers, 
the proportion of consideration will seem excessive which Mr. 
Hooker gives to the experiences of the soul in mere " prepa- 
ration" for conversion. He has volumes on these antecedent 
exercises of the spirit before it gets to the point of trust in 
Christ. He laid himself open, even while he lived, to the re- 
mark of the shrewd Rev. Nathaniel Ward of Ipswich, Mass., 
"Mr. Hooker, you make as good Christians before men are 
in Christ as ever they are after ; would I were but as good a 
Christian now, as you make men while they are but preparing 
for Christ." 12 

Mr. Hooker's course in this respect was perhaps some- 
what extreme, even for his time. But in those days of recoil 
from the outward ceremonial religion in which the Papacy 
had so long held men, the inward facts of personal experience 
were made the subject of the profoundest scrutiny and dis- 



Giles Firmin's Real Christian, p. 19. 



124 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647 

section. Especially all the subterfuges and windings of the 
human spirit in recoil from the stern presentations of the 
sovereignty and righteousness of God, were followed with 
microscopic acuteness of observation and loving pitilessness 
of exposure. Conversion was a great thing and a difficult 
thing. It was "not a little mercy that would serve the 
turne ; . . . the Lord will make all crack before thou shalt finde 
mercy." ]3 Mr. Hooker's son-in-law, the saintly Thomas 
Shepard, of Cambridge, put the matter thus, in his Sincere 
Convert : " yesns Christ is not got with a wet finger. . . It 
is a tough work, a wonderfull hard matter to be saved ; " 14 
and again, " 'Tis a thousand to one if ever thou bee one of 
that small number whom God hath picked out to escape this 
wrath to come." 15 

Holding these views of the immense difficulty of saving 
conversion, and the measureless liability of men to decep- 
tion about it, together with the infinite misery of failing- in 
the enterprise, it is not strange that the whole process of the 
spiritual work should have been tried as by fire. As speci- 
mens of this kind of endeavor, Hooker's writings are unsur- 
passed. Of this feature of his teachings, as well as of others 
which will give us some more general view of his spirit and 
method as a preacher, we shall get the best conception from 
some quotations from his books. No attempt will here be 
made either to enforce or to refute any of the sentiments 
quoted. The only purpose of making these extracts is to bring 
the man before us as he was, and as he expressed himself. 
The comparative rarity of his books, together with the trans- 
cendent place he holds in the history of this Church, will 
justify somewhat extended transcription of the utterances 



n Hooker, Soul es Preparation (1632), pp. 9-10. 

14 Shepard's Sincere Convert (1646), p. 150. 

15 Ibid, 98. 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. l2 $ 

which used to awe and thrill, alarm and comfort the first 
generation of its members. 

In the Soides Preparation for Christ, he is arguing on the 
necessity of a clear view of a man's sinfulness, and says : 

" First, it is not every sight of sinne will serve the turne, 
nor every apprehension of a mans vilenesse ; but it must 
have these two properties in it. First, he must see sinne 
clearly ; second, convictingly. First, hee that will see sinne 
clearly must see it truly and fully, and be able to fadome the 
compasse of his corruptions, and to dive into the depths of 
the wretchedness of his vile heart ; otherwise it wil befall a 
a mans sinne as it doth the wound of a mans body : When 
a man lookes into the wound only, and doth not search it to 
the bottome, it begins to fester and rancle, and so in the end 
he is slaine by it; so it is with most sinners; Wee carry 
all away with this ; Wee are sinners ; and such ordinary con- 
fessions ; but we never see the depth of the wound of sinne, 
and so are slaine by our sinnes. It is not a generall, slight, 
and confused sight of sinne that will serve the turne ; it is 
not enough to say : It is my infirmity ; and I cannot amend 
it ; and Wee are all sinners ; and so forth. No ; this is the 
ground why wee mistake our evils and reforme not our wayes, 
because we have a slight and overly sight of sinne. A man 
must prove his wayes as the goldsmith doth his gold, in the 
fire ; a man must search narrowly and have much light to see 
what the vilenesse of his own heart is, and to see what his 
sinnes are that doe procure the wrath of God against him. 
.... We must looke on the nature of sinne in the venome 
of it, the deadly hurtful! nature that it hath for plagues and 
miseries it doth procure our soules ; and that you may doe, 
partly if you compare it with other things, and, partly if you 
looke at it in regard of yourselves : First, compare sinne with 
those things that are most fearefull and horrible ; as suppose 
any soule here present were to behold the damned in hell, 
and if the Lord should give thee a little peepe-hole into hell, 
that thou didst see the horror of those damned soules, and 



126 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

thy heart begin to shake in the consideration thereof ; then 
propound this to thy owne heart : What paines the damned 
in hell doe endure for sin, and thy heart will quake and shake 
at it ; the least sinne that ever thou didst commit, though thou 
makest a light matter of it, is a greater evill than the paines 
of the damned in hell, setting aside their sinne ; all the tor- 
ments in hell are not so great an evil as the least sin is. Men 
begin to shrink at this, and to loathe to goe down to hell and 

to be in endless torments." 16 

« 

But such a thorough sight of sin is needful to a thorough 
work of grace ; for : 

" Many have gone a great way in the worke of humiliation, 
and yet, because it never went through to the quicke, they 
have gone backe againe and become as vile as ever they were. 
I have known men that the Lord hath layed a heavie bur- 
then upon them, and awakened their consciences, and driven 
them to a desperate extremity, and yet, after much anguish 
and many resolutions, and the prizing of Christ, as they con- 
ceived, and after the renouncing of all, to take Christ upon 
his owne termes as they imagined ; and even these when they 
have bin eased and refreshed, and God hath taken off the 
trouble, they have come to be as crosse to God and all good- 
nesse, and as full of hatred to Gods children as ever, and 
worse too. 

Now, why did these fall 'away ? Why were they never 
justified and sanctified ? And why did they never come to 
beleeve in the Lord Jesus ? The reason is, because their 
hearts were never pierced for their sinne, they were never 
kindly loosened from it. This is the meaning of that place 
in Ier.: Plow tip tlie fallow grounds of y 'our hearts , and sowe 
not among t homes ; it is nothing else, but with sound, saving 
sorrow to have the heart pierced with the terrours of the Law 
seising upon it, and the vilenesse of sin wounding the con- 
science because of it. The heart of man is compared to fal- 
low ground that is unfruitfull : You must not sow amongst 



16 Soules Preparation (1632), pp. 12-14. 



1629-1647-] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. 12 J 

thornes and thistles; first, plow it, and lay it bare and 
naked, and then cast in your seed. If a man plow here a 
furrow and there a furrow, and leave here and there a bawke, 
hee is never like to have a good crop ; there will grow so 
many thistles, and so much grasse, that it will choake the 
seed : our hearts are this ground ; and our corruptions are 
these thorns and thistles. Now, if a man be content to 
finde some sinne hatefull, because it is shamefull, but will 
keepe here a lust and there a lust, hee will never make any 
good husbandry of his heart ; though a faithful Minister 
should sow all the grace of the promises in his soule, he 
would never get any good by them, but the corruptions that 
remaine in the heart will hinder the saving worke thereof. 

"Therefore plow up all, and by sound, saving sorrow, 
labour to have thy heart burthened for sinne, and estranged 

from it, and this is good husbandry indeed If you 

would have your hearts such as God may take delight in and 

accept, you must have them broken and contrite A 

contrite heart is that which is powdered all to dust, as the 
Prophet saith, Thou bringest us to dust, and tlien thou say- 
est, Returne agaiue y e sonnes of men. So the heart must be 
broken all in pieces to powder, and the union of sinne must 
be broken, and it must be content to be weaned from all 
sinne ; As you may make any thing of the hardest flint that 
is broken all to dust, so it is with the heart that is thus fit- 
ted and fashioned ; If there be any corruption that the 
heart lingers after, it will hinder the worke of preparation; 
If a man cut off all from a branch save one sliver; that will 
make it grow still, that it cannot be engrafted into another 
stock ; So though a man's corrupt heart depart from many 
sinnes and scandalous abominations ; yet if he keepe the 
love of any one sinne, it will be his destruction ; as many a 
man after horrour of heart hath had a love after some base 
lust or other, and is held by it so fast, that hee can never bee 
ingrafted into the Lord Jesus. This one lust may breake his 
neck and send him downe to hell. So then, if the soule only 
can be fitted for Christ by sound sorrow, then this must 



I2 8 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

needes pierce the heart before Christ can come there ; but 
the heart cannot bee fitted for Christ without this, and there- 
fore of necessity the heart must be truly wounded with sor- 
row for sin." 17 

And there is a great liability to self-deception about this 
matter. 

" O doe not cozen your owne soules ; it is not the teares of 
the eye, but the blood of the heart that your shines must 
cost, and if you come not to this, never thinke that your 

sorrow is good Now if all be true that I have said, 

there are but few sorrowers for sinne, therefore few saved ; 
here wee see the ground and reason why many fly off from 
Godlinesse and Christianity ; This is the cause, their soules 
wereonely troubled with a little hellish sorrow, but their hearts 
were never kindly grieved for their sinnes. If a mans arme 
be broken and disjoynted a little, it may grow together againe ; 
But if it be quite broken off it cannot grow together ; So the 
terrour of the Law affrighted his conscience, and a powerfull 
Minister unjoynted his soule, and the Judgments of God were 
rending of him ; but he was never cut off altogether; and 
therefore he returnes as vile, & as base, if not worse than 
before, & grows more firmly to his corruptions. It is with 
a mans conversion as in some mens ditching, they doe not 
pull up all the trees by the roots, but plash. them ; so when 
you come to have your corruptions cut off, you plash them, 
and doe not wound your hearts kindly, and you doe not make 
your soules feele the burthen of sin truly ; this will make a 
man grow and flourish still howsoever, more cunningly and 

subtilly Looke as it is with a womans conception, 

those birthes that are hasty, the children are either still borne, 
or the woman most commonly dies ; so doe not thou thinke 
to fall upon the promise presently. Indeed you cannot fall 
upon it too soone upon good grounds ; but it is impossible, 
that ever a full soule or a haughty heart should beleeve, thou 
mayest be deceived, but thou canst not be engrafted into 



Ibia, pp. 1 50-1 51 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. I2 g 

Christ ; therefore when God begins to worke, never rest till 
you come to a full measure of this brokennesse of heart. 
Oh follow the blow, and labour to make this worke sound 
and good unto the bottom." 1& 

But one test and measure of this soundness, inculcated by- 
Hooker, may, perhaps, occasion surprise. It is that test of 
true conversion which in our New England theology is com- 
monly connected with the name of Dr. Hopkins of Newport 
— that a Christian should be willing to be damned if it be 
God's will. Cotton Mather — a man whose generosity of 
nature has not been duly acknowledged — tries to defend Mr. 
Hooker from the imputation of teaching this doctrine, on the 
ground that the publication of Mr. Hooker's writings, was to 
a great extent " without his consent or knowledge ; whereby 
his notions came to be deformedly misrepresented in multi- 
tudes of passages, among which I will suppose that crude 
passage which Mr. Giles Firmin, in his Real Christian, so 
well confutes, That if the soul be rightly humbled, it is con- 
tent to bear the state of damnation." 19 The defence is well 
meant, but it is idle. The Hopkinsian doctrine of content- 
ment in being damned was taught nearly a century and a 
half before Hopkins, by Hooker and his son-in-law Shepard, 
with the utmost distinctness. It is not by any supposition 
of incorrect short-hand reporting that the tenet can be 
got out of Hooker's Humiliation or Shepard's. Sincere 
Convert. The doctrine is logically and rhetorically woven 
into the texture of both treatises. It appears and re- 
appears in them. It is prepared for, led up to, stated, 



] » Ibid, pp. 182, 187. 

19 Magna Ha, i, 315. Cotton Mather followed his father, Increase, m this 
attempted explanation of the obnoxious passages in Mr. Hooker's writings on 
this subject. See Increase Mather's prefatory letter to Solomon Stoddard's 
Guide to Christ, dated November, 17 14. 
17 



!30 T HE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

enforced, and objections to it answered. There is no acci- 
dental and inconsiderate slipping into its utterance. It is 
accepted with full intelligence, and with clear recognition of 
its obnoxiousness and its difficulty to the average experience. 

Pages might be quoted from Shepard in proof of this state- 
ment, but attention here must be confined to Hooker's teach- 
ings on the subject. 

The preacher is well aware he is dealing with a hard 
point : 

" Now I come to this last passage in this worke of Humil- 
iation, and this is the dead lift of all. The Prodigall doth 
not stand it out with his Father and say, I am now come 
againe x if I may have halfe the rule in the Family I am con- 
tent to live with you. No, though hee would not stay there 
before, now hee cannot be kept out, hee is content to bee 

anything Lord (saith he) show me mercy and I am 

content to be and to suffer any thing. So from hence the 
Doctrine is this : The Soide that is truly humbled is content 
to be disposed of by the Almightie as it pleas eth him. 

" The main pitch of this point lyes in the word content. 
This phrase is a higher pitch then the former of submis- 
sion ; and this is plaine by this example. Take a debtor 
who hath used all meanes to avoyd the creditor : in the end 
he seeeth that hee cannot avoyd the suit, and to beare it hee 
is not able. Therefore the onely way is to come in, and yield 
himselfe into his creditor's handes ; where there is nothing, 
and the King must loose his right ; so the debtor yields him- 
selfe ; but suppose the creditor should use him hardly, exact 
the uttermost, and throw him into prison ; Now to bee con- 
tent to under-goe the hardest dealing, it is a hard matter : 
this is a further degree than the offering himselfe. So, when 
the Soule hath offered himselfe, and he seeth that Gods 
writs are out against him, and his Conscience (the Lords 
Serjeant) is coming to serve a subpoena on him, and it is not 
able to avoyd it, nor to beare it when he comes, therefore he 
submits himselfe and saith, Lord whither shall I goe, thy 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. I3I 

anger is heavy and unavoydable ; Nay, whatsoever God 
requires, the Soule layes his hande upon his mouth, and goes 
away contented and well satisfied, and it hath nothing to say 
against the Lord. This is the nature of the Doctrine in 
hand : and for the better opening of it let me discover three 

things For howsoever the Lords worke is secret in 

other ordinary things, yet all the Soules that ever came to 
Christ, and that ever shall come to Christ, must have this 
worke upon them ; and it is impossible that faith should be 
in the Soule ; except this worke bee there first, to make way 
for faith." 20 .... 

"Thirdly. Hence the Soule comes to be quiet and fram- 
able under the heavy hand of God in that helplesse condition 
wherein hee is ; so that the Soule having beene thus framed 
aforehand, it comes to this, that it takes the blow and lies 
under the burthen, and goes away quietly and patiently, and 
saith not a word more. Oh ! this is a heart worth gold. He 
accounts God's dealing and God's way to be the fittest and 
most seasonable of all. Oh ! (saith he) it is fit that God should 
glorifie himselfe though I be damned forever, for I deserve 
the worst." 21 . . . . 

"Now see this blessed frame of heart in these three par- 
ticulars. First, the Soule is content that mercy will deny 
what it will to the Soule, and the Soule is content and 
calmed with what mercy denyes. If the Lord will not heare 
his prayers, and if the Lord will cast him away, because he 
hath cast away the Lord's kindnesse, and if the Lord will 
leave him in that miserable and damnable condition, which 
he hast brought himself into by the stubbornesse of his heart, 
the Soule is quiet. Though I confesse it is harsh and 
tedious, and long it is ere the Soule be thus framed, yet the 
heart truly abased is content to beare the estate of damna- 
tion ; because he hath brought this misery and damnation 
upon himselfe." 22 



20 Soules Humiliation, (Ed. 1638,) pp. 98-100. 

21 Ibid, pp. 106-107. 
82 Ibid. 112. 



^2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

"But, some may here object and say, Must the Soule, can 
the Soule, or ought it to be thus content to be left in this 
damnable condition? For the answer hereof, know, that this 
contentedness implies two things Secondly, it im- 
plies a calmnesse of Soule, not murmuring against the Lord's 
dispensation towards him. ..... And thus we ought to be 

contented with whatsoever mercy shall deny, because wee 
are not worthy of any favour; and the humble Soule reasons 
thus with it selfe, and saith, my owne sinne, and my abomi- 
nations have brought me into this damnable condition wherein 
I am, & I have neglected that mercy which might have 
brought me from it, therefore why should I murmur against 
mercy, though it deny me mercy? ..... Marke this well. 

He that is not willing to acknowledge the freenesse of the 
course of mercy, is not worthy, nay, hee is not fit to receive 
any mercy : but that Soule which is not content that mercy 
deny him what it will, he doth not give way to the freenesse 
of the Lords grace and mercy, and therefore that Soule is 
not fit for mercy." 23 

"But some may object. Can a man feele this frame of 
heart, to be content that mercy should leave him in hell? 
Doe the Saints of God find this ? And can any man know 
this in his heart ? 

To this I answer. Many of God's servants have been 
driven to this, and have attained to it, and have laid open the 
simplicitie of their Soules in being content with this." 24 

"The Soule that is thus contented to be at Gods dispos- 
ing, it is ever improving all meanes and helpes that may 
bring him nearer to God, but if mercy shall deny it, the soul 
is satisfied and rests well apaid; this every Soule that is 
truly humbled may have, and hath in some measure." 25 

But this submission and humiliation of the soul is a work 
no man can accomplish for himself : 

2i Ibid, pp. 1 1 3-1 1 5. 

24 Ibid, p. 115. 

25 Ibid, p. 114- 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. ^3 

For, "this union that is betweene the soule and its cor- 
ruptions is marveilous strong and firme, nay so strong and 
firme that there is no meanes under heaven, no creature in the 
world that is able to breake this union, and dissolve this 
combination that is betweene sinne and the soule, unless the 
Lord by his Almighty power come and break this concord 
and conspiracy that is betweene sinne and the soule, against 
himselfe and the glory of his name ; and for the truth hereof 
observe this, all outward meanes are too scant, too narrow, 
too short to break the union betweene sinne and the soule ; 
as it is with the body of a man if there were a great and old 
distemper in a mans stomacke, if a man should put a rich 
doublet upon him and lay him in a Featherbed, and use all 
other outward meanes, this would doe him noe good, because 
the disease is within, and is become, as it were, another nature 
in him, it is an old distemper that hath eaten into his very 
bowels, and therefore all outward meanes cannot make a 
separation betweene the disease and the body, because the 
disease being inward they cannot come neare it. Just so 
it is with the soule of a man ; a mans heart will have his 
sinne; there is an inward combination betweene the soule 
and sinne ; now all meanes, as the Word, and the like is out- 
ward, and can doe no good in this kind, they cannot break 
the union betweene a mans heart and his corruptions unless 
the Lord by his Almighty power and infinite wisedom make 
a separation betweene sinne and the soule, and dissolve this 
union. The soule saith, I will have my sinne, and I will 
have my life, and I will have my God, though I die for it ; 
there is a strong league made betweene the heart of a sinner 
and his lusts, and therefore all outward meanes cannot pos- 
sibly break this league: looke as it is with a strong stomack, 
if you give it any ordinary meate the strength of the stom- 
acke is above the meate, and turnes the meate into the nature 
of itself, so it is with a corrupt heart that hath made a league 
with his lusts, all outward meanes and ordinances of God, a 
corrupt heart converts them and turnes them aside to his 
everlasting destruction ; the instrumental! cause is alwayes 



^4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

under the principall; the soul of a man is a soveraigne com- 
mander; this way all outward meanes are but instrumental 
muses, [sic] and the heart of a man is above them, and 
therefore they may as well harden a man as soften his heart 
and humble his soule ; a man can receive no good thereby 
unless it please God to overpower this distemper that is in a 
man, and breake the neare union and firme league that is 
betweene sinne and the soule." 26 

But God sometimes interposes to afford this indispensable 
aid. Not always, indeed, for God's purpose does not always 
go to the extent of this saving work. 

"The Lord deales diversely as hee seeth fit; specially 
these three wayes. 

First, if God have a purpose to civilize a man, he will lay 
his sorrow as a fetter upon him ; he onely meanes to civilize 
him, and knocke off his fingers from base courses as we have 
knowne some in our dayes ; God casts this sorrow into their 
hearts and then they say they will persecute Gods people no 
more ; haply they are naught still, but God confines them : 
first, God only rips the skinne a little and layeth some small 
blow upon him; but if a man have been a rude and great 
ryoter the Lord begins to serve a Writ upon him .... so 
that now the soule seeth the flashes of hell, and Gods wrath 
upon the soule, and the terrours of hell lay hold upon the 
heart, and he confesseth hee is so, and hee hath done so, and 
therefore he is a poore damned creature, and then the soule 
labours to welter it, and it may be his conscience will bee 
deluded by some earn all Minister that makes the way broader 
than it is, ... . or else it may be hee stops the mouth of 
conscience with some outward performances, .... and he 
will pray in his family, & heare sermons, & take up some 
good courses, & thus he takes up a quiet civill course, and 
stayeth here awhile, and at last comes to nothing; and thus 
God leaves him in the lurch, if he meanes onely to civilize 
him. 



20 The Vnbeleevers Preparing for Christ (1638), pp. 138-140. 



1629-1647-] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. ^5 

But secondly, if God intends to doe good to a man, he will 

not let him goe thus, and fall to a civile course If 

God love a sinner, and meane to doe good to him ; hee will 
not let him looke off his sinne ; the Lord will ferret him from 
his denne, and from his base courses and practices : He will 
be with you in all your stealing and pilfering, and in all your 
cursed devices, if you belong to him hee will not give you 

over Now the soule is beyond all shift ; when it is 

day hee wisheth it were night, and when it isnight hee wisheth 
it were day ; the wrath of God followeth him withersoever 
he goeth, and the soule would faine be rid of this, but hee 
cannot ; and yet all the while the soule is not heavy and sor- 
rowful for sinne : hee is burdened, and could be content to 
throw away the punishment and horror of sin, but not the 
sweet of sinne : as it is with a child that takes a live coale 
in his hand thinking to play with it, when hee feels fire in it 
hee throwes it away : hee doth not throw it away because it 
is black but because it burnes him : So it is here : A sinful 
wretch will throw away his sinne because of the wrath of 
God that is due to him for it, and the drunkard will be drunke 
no more ; but if hee might have his queanes and his pots 
without any punishment or trouble, hee would have them 
with all his heart ; hee loves the black and sweet of sinne 
well enough, but he loves not the plague of sinne 

" Now in the third place, if the Lord purpose to doe good 
to the soule, hee will not suffer him to be quiet here, but hee 
openeth the eye of the soule further ; and makes him sorrow, 
not because it is a great and shamefull sinne, but the Lord 
saith to the soule : Even the least sinne makes a separation 
between mee and thee ; and the heart begins to reason thus : 
Lord, is this true ? is this the smart of sinne ? and is this the 
vile nature of sinne? O Lord ! how odious are these abom- 
inations that cause this evill ; and though they had not 
caused this evill, yet this is worse than the evill, that they 
make a separation betweene God and my soule. Good Lord 
why was I borne ? " 21 



The Soules Preparation, (1632), pp. 131-136. 



136 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

So that if God really intends to save a man, he does not 
stop with any " Morall and externall drawing "— 

" For this will not doe it, this is only an outward drawing ; 
but when the Lord is pleased to put a new power into the 
soule of a sinner, and withall to carry the will to the object 
propounded that it may embrace it; when God is pleased, 
not only to offer good things to the soule but to enable the 
soule to lay hold upon the things offered ; not only to offer 
Christ and his salvation, but to work effectually upon the 
heart, and make it able to give entertainment to Christ, then 

the Lord is said to draw a sinner to himselfe I 

express it thus, looke as it is with the wheele of a clock, or 
the wheele of a Jack that is turned aside, and by some con- 
trary poyse set the wrong way. He now that will set this 
wheele right must take away the contrary poyse, and then 
put the wheele the right way ; and yet the wheele doth not 
goe all this while of itself, but first there is a stopping of the 
wheele and a taking away of the poyse : and secondly the 
wheele must be turned the right way ; and all this while the 
wheele is only a sufferer ; so it is with the soule of a man, 
the heart of a man, and the will of a man, and the affections 
of a man ; they are the wheeles of the soules of men ; the 
Lord Jesus made them at the first to runne to heaven-ward 
and to God-ward, but when Adam sinned, then the poyse of 
corruptions prevailed so farre forth over them, that they 
drew the heart, the mind, the will of man from God, and 
made it runne the wrong way to the divell-ward and to 
hell-ward ; now when the Lord cometh to set these wheeles 
aright, he must take away the poyse and plummet that made 
them runne the wrong way ; that is, the Lord by his almighty 
power must overpower those sinnes and corruptions which 

harbour in the soule and then the frame of the soule 

will be to God-ward, it will be in a right frame and order, it 
will runne the right way, and all this while the will is only a 
sufferer, and this I take to be the meaning of the text ; That 
God by a kind of holy violence, rendeth the soule of a poore 
sinner, and withall by his almighty power stops the force of 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. J37 

a mans corruptions, and makes the soule teachable, and fram- 
able to the will of God : it makes it to lie levell, and to be 
at Gods command ; and this is done by a holy kind of vio- 
lence." 28 

But once this sovereign effectual work of grace is wrought 
in a man's soul and there is no end to the consolations of the 
gospel. 

" It is a word of consolation, and it is a cordiall to cheare up a 
man's heart and carry him through all troubles whatsoever can 
betide him or shall befall him. This doctrine of Justification it 
seems to me to be like Noahs Arke, when all the world was to 
bee drowned : God taught Noah to make an arke, and to pitch 
it about, that no water, nor winds, nor stormes could breake 
through, and so it bore up Noah above the waters, and kept 
him safe against wind and weather ; when one was on the top 
of a mountain crying : O save me, another clambering upon 
the trees, all floting, and crying, and dying there ; there was 
no saving but for those only that were gotten into the arke : 
Oh so it will be with you poore foolish beleevers, the world is 
like this sea, wherein are many floods of water, many troubles, 
much persecution : Oh get you into the arke the Lord 
Jesus, and when one is roring and yelling, Oh the devill, the 
devill ; another is ready to hang himselfe, or to cut his owne 
throat ; another sends for a Minister, and hee crieth, Oh 
there is no mercy for mee, I have opposed it ; Get you into 
Christ, I say, and you shall bee safe I will warrant you ; your 
soules shall bee transported with consolation to the end of 
your hopes." 29 

Such a consolation stands by a man in time of tribulation: 

" Notwithstanding temptation, notwithstanding persecu- 
tion, notwithstanding opposition, notwithstanding anything 
that may befall you for the present, or anything you may 
feare for the future time, cheare up your drooping spirits in 



28 Preparing for Christ, (1638,) pp. 24-26. 

29 The Soules Exaltation, (1638,) pp. 122-3. 

18 



I3 8 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

the consideration hereof, and be forever comforted, forever 
contented, forever refreshed ; you have a faire portion ; 
what would you have? what can you desire? what would 
quiet you ? what will content you ? would the wisdome 
of a Christ satisfie you ? would the sanctification of a Christ 
please you? would the redemption of a Christ cheare you? 
you complaine your hearts are hard, your sinnes great, and 
yourselves miserable, and many are the troubles that lie upon 
you ; will the redemption of a Christ now satisfie you ? 
If this will doe it, it is all yours; his wisdom is yours, his 
righteousness is yours, his sanctification is yours, all that he 
hath is yours, and I thinke this is sufficient if you know when 
you are well. Therefore goe away cheared, goe away com- 
forted." 30 

And it will stand by one in the time of death : 
"The death of the beleever is a mean to bringandestate them 
into the full possession of all that happinesse and glory, which 
heretofore hath beene expected, and Christ hath promised ; 
now it shall be attained ; the time now comes when the 
Saints of God shall have no more teares in their eyes, nor sin 
in their soules, nor sorrow in their hearts ; when they die, 
then their sins and sorrows die, too ; you shal never be dead- 
harted more ; then you shal have holines in ful possession, 
which so long time you have longed for ; it is now only in 
expectation, and you hope and looke for it, ... but when 
death comes it will bring you the fruition of all that holinesse 
and happinesse. . . . Now you are children, but only in non- 
age; now you are wives, betrothed, and you goe up and 
downe in your rags of sinne ; but when the solemnization of 
the marriage shall bee in the great day of accounts, then we 
shall be like him, and hee will make us altogether holy, and 
he will fill our blinde mindes with knowledge, and possess 
our corrupt hearts with all puritie, holinesse, and grace, so far 
as thy soule shall be capable of it, and shall bee needfull for 
thee. What ! are you unwilling to goe to your husband?" 31 

™ Ibid, pp. 84, 85. 
81 Ibid, pp. 210-11. 



1629-1647.] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. : I3 q 

And of this blessed estate the Spirit of God gives witness : 

" The spirit doth evidence to the soule, broken and hum- 
bled, that the soule hath an interest in this mercy, that it 
was appointed for it, and he hath to meddle with it. . . 

We may observe that a witnesse in a cause doth marvel- 
lously cleare it, if he be wise and judicious ; and the thing 
that before was doubtfull comes now to be apparent ; as now 
in a point of Law, two men contend for land ; now, if an 
ancient wise man is called before the Judge at the Assizes, 
and hee beares witnesse upon his knowledge that such lands 
have beene in the possession of such a generation or family 
for the space of many yeares, this is a speciall testification 
that this man, being of that generation, hath an interest in 
those lands ; so it is with the witnesse of Gods Spirit ; there 
is a controversie between Satan and the Soule ; the soul 
saith : Oh, that grace and compassion might be bestowed on 
mee ! Why (saith Satan), dost thou conceive of any mercy, 
or grace and salvation ? marke thy rebellions against thy 
Saviour ; marke the wretched distempers of thy heart, and the 
filthy abominations of thy life ; dost thou think of mercy ? 
.... Now, the Spirit of God coming in, that casts the cause 
and makes it evident if such a poore heart have interest, and 
may meddle and make challenge to mercy because it hath 
beene prepared for them from the beginning of the world to 
this very day. Now this gives a light into the businesse, & 
the evidence is sure that this man hath title to all the riches 
and compassion of the Lord Jesus ; Acts ii, 39. Every poore 
creature thinkes that God thinkes so of him as hee thinkes 

of himself e, whereas the Spirit of the Lord judgeth 

otherwise, and God meanes well toward him, and intends 
good to all you that have been broken for your sins ; and 
there is witness of it in heaven, and it shall be made good 
in your owne consciences." 32 

And therefore God's people ought to live cheerfully and 
victoriously : 

" It is a marvellous great shame to see those that are borne 



The Soules Effectvall Calling, (1638,) pp. 79, 80. 



I4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

to faire meanes, I meane the poore saints of God, that have 
a right and title to grace and Christ, and yet to live at such 
an under rate : I would have you to live above the world, 
though thou hast not a coat to cover thee, nor a house to put 
thy head in ; yet if thou hast faith, thou art a rich man ; 
therefore husband thy estate well. It is a shame, I say, to 
see them that they cannot husband that happy estate which 
they have ; they live as if they had it not, so full of want, so 
full of care and pride, so weake, and unable to master their 
sinnes ; whereas the fault is not in the power of faith, nor the 
promise, nor in the Lord, for the Lord doth not grudge his 
people of comfort, but would have them live cheerfully, and 
have strong consolations, and mighty assurance of God's love. 
And therefore the text saith : Rejoyce in the LordalwayesT 33 

Mr. Hooker's observations about the general period of the 
effectual call of men, have a certain interest : 

" Some are called in their youth, some in their middle age, 
some in their old age, some in the tender yeares, some in 
their riper age ; some old, some young ; but this is most true, 
that those whom God doth call, it is most commonly in their 
middle age, before they come to their old age; this is the gen- 
erall course of God ; he calls many before, some after, but 
most then ; Eccles. iii, 1. There the wise man observes that 
there is a time appointed for every purpose, and it appeareth 
that the middle age is the fittest time for this purpose .... 
for it is observed by Philosophers that a man in his tender 
infancie lives the life of a tree onely, he onely eates and 
growes ; and so it is with little children in their swadling 
cloathes ; afterwards, when hee comes to further yeares, when 
he comes to be ten or twelve yeares old, then hee lives the life 
of a beast ; he is taken away with these objects that are then 
most suitable to him ; for a child to consider of the mysteries 
of life & salvation is almost impossible ; he is not yet come 
to that ripenesse of judgement; but when he comes to the 
ripenesse of his yeares, from 20 yeares untill he comes to be 



Vi Ibid, p. 619. 



1629-1647-] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. ! 4I 

40, or thereabouts, then the workes of reason put forth them- 
selves, then his apprehension is quick to conceive a thing, 
and his memory is strong and pregnant to retaine a thing 

apprehended, and his heart is somewhat plyable, 

therefore then is the fittest time that God should bestow his 
graces upon a man. Looke as it is with waxe ; if a man 
melt it, it will be too soft to hold any impression, and when 
it is hard it will receive no seale neither, . . it must be nei- 
ther too extremely hot, nor too hard, but mediately disposed, 
and then it will receive a seale ; so it is with the nature of a 
man ; in his tender yeares hee can hold nothing, he hath such 
a weake understanding. Tell a child of the wonders of sal- 
vation, and it is impossible, unlesse God workes wonderfully, 
that hee should receive them ; a mans nature in his infancie, 
is like waxe that is too soft, and the nature of an old man is 
like waxe too hard ; but now a middle aged man is neither so 
weake as the one, nor so hard as the other, but it is most fit 
for God to put a stamp upon, for his heart is the most ply- 
able to receive the things of grace." 34 

One quotation more must suffice. The topic treated of is 
" What is a powerful minister ? " 

" The word is compared to a sword : as, if a man should 
draw a sword and flourish it about, and should not strike a 
blow with it, it will doe no harme ; even so it is here with 
the Ministers, little good will they doe if they doe onely ex- 
plicate ; if they doe onley draw out the sword of the Spirit : 
for unlesse they apply it to the peoples hearts particularly, 
little good may the people expect, little good shall the Minis- 
ter doe. A common kind of teaching when the Minister doth 
speake only hoveringly, and in the generall, and never applies 
the word of God particularly, may be compared to the con- 
fused noise that was in the ship wherein Jonah was, when 
the winds blew, and the sea raged, and a great storm began 
to arise. The poore Marriners strove with might and maine, 
and they did endeavour by all meanes possible to bring the 



Preparing for Christ, pp. 198-200. 



1^2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1629-1647. 

ship to the shore; every one cried unto his god and cast their 
wares into the sea, and all this while Jonas was fast asleepe 
in the ship : but when the Marriners came down and plucked 
him up, and said, Arise, thou sleeper, . . Who art thou? 
Call upon thy God, then he was awakened out of his sleepe. 
The common delivery of the word is like that confused noise : 
there is matter of heaven, of hell, of grace, of sin spoken of, 
there is a common noise, and all this while men sit and sleepe 
carelessly, and never looke about them, but rest secure : but 
when particular application comes, that shakes a sinner, as 
the Pilot did Jonah, and asks him, What assurance of God's 
mercy hast thou ? what hope of pardon of sinnes ? of life 
and happinesse hereafter ? You are baptized, and so were 
many that are in hell : you come to Church, and so did many 
that are in hell : but what is your conversation in the mean- 
time ? Is that holy in the sight of God and man ? 

" When the Ministers of God shake men and take them 
up on this fashion then they begin to stirre up themselves, 
and to consider of their estates. This generall and common 
kind of teaching is like an enditement without a name : if a 
man should come to the assizes, and make a great exclamation 
and have no name to his enditement, alas, no man is troubled 
with it, no man feares it, no man shall receive any punishment 
by reason of it. So it is with this common kind of preach- 
ing, it is an enditement without a name. We arrest none 
before wee particularly arraigne them before the tribunall of 
the Lord, and show them these and these are their sinnes, 
and that unless they repent and forsake them they shall be 
damned : for then this would stirre them up, and make them 
seke to the Lord for mercy ; this would rowse them out of 
their security, and awaken them, and make them say as the 
Jewes did to Peter and the rest of the Apostles, Men and 
brethren, what shall wee doe to bee saved?" 35 

The foregoing quotations give a fair specimen of Hooker's 
style. But they only partially indicate the wonderful variety 



85 The Soules Implantation, (1640,) pp. 73-77. 



1629-1647-] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. ^3 

of pat, homely, forcible illustration, and of pungent, search- 
ing, and energetic application, with which the same essential 
theme is treated in most of his many volumes. But they are 
sufficient to make evident that such a preacher was sure of 
hearers. Such an analyst of human emotions must touch 
men at many points. A son of thunder and a son of con- 
solation by turns, his ministry — whatever the extravagances 
or the defects of his theology — must have been anywhere 
and in any age powerful. 

Mr. Hooker's Survey of the Smnme of Church-Discipline 
stands, as has been said, apart from all his other writings, in 
the character of a controversial essay, not addressed to 
listening auditors or upon an experimentally religious theme. 
As such, it gives opportunity, more than do the other 
volumes written by him, for the indication of his really pro- 
found learning, and his extraordinary acuteness as a logician. 
It justifies Dr. Ames' observation concerning him, that he 
had never met with Mr. Hooker's equal for "disputing;" 36 
by which he meant, strenuous debate and discussion. 

Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the controversial 
character of the treatise, and its minute and laborious con- 
futations of the positions of Mr. Rutherford's book, to which 
it was written as a reply, have put it at a disadvantage, as to 
popular interest and impression, when compared, for exam- 
ple, with John Cotton's Way of the Churches in New Eng- 
land, or his Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven. The reader 
everywhere admires the subtlety of the author's analysis, 
and the vigor and acuteness of his rejoinders; but he wearies 
of the endless process of replication to statements made in 
the volume controverted. It is a vast pity, so far as the 
general popular effect of Mr. Hooker's ecclesiastical instruc- 



36 Magnalia, i, 308. 



144 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 629-1647. 

tions is concerned, and the vitality of his repute as a Con- 
gregational authority, that he did not leave his teachings in 
the form of a simple, direct treatise on what he conceived to 
be the Scriptural, and what he helped to make the New 
England way, rather than so imbedded in and combined with 
such a mass of polemic detail. That he could easily have 
written such a plain and straight-forward argument, which 
might have stood the foremost document of ecclesiasti- 
cal authority for the period in question, cannot be doubted 
by any one who considers either his general capacity as a 
writer, or who more particularly regards the brief and admir- 
able statement of the main positions advocated by him in 
the Survey, as given by him in the Preface to his volume ; 
with the quotation of which statement this chapter upon 
Mr. Hooker's writings may well conclude. 

"I shall plainly and punctually expresse my self i)i a word 
of truth, in these following points, viz. : 

" Visible Saints are the only true and meete matter, 
whereof a visible Church should be gathered, and confcedera- 
tion is the form. 

" The Church as Totum essentiale, is, and may be, before 
Officers. 

"There is no Presbyteriall Church (i. e. A Church made 
up of the Elders of many Congregations appointed Classick- 
wise, to rule all those Congregations) in the N. T. 

"A Church Congregationall is the first subject of the 
keys. 

"Each Congregation compleatly constituted of all Officers, 
hath sufficient power in her self, to exercise the power 
of the keyes, and all Church discipline, in all the censures 
thereof. 

"Ordination is not before election. 

"There ought to be no ordination of a Minister at large, 
Namely, such as should make him Pastour without a People. 



1629-1747-] HOOKER'S WRITINGS. I45 

"The election of the people hath an instrumentall causall 
vertue under Christ to give an outward call unto an Officer. 

"Ordination is only a solemn installing of an Officer into 
the Office, unto which he was formerly called. 

"Children of such, who are members of Congregations, 
ought only to be baptized. 

"The consent of the people gives a causal vertue to the 
compleating of the sentence of excommunication. Whilst 
the Church remains a true Church of Christ, it doth not lose 
this power, nor can it lawfully be taken away. 

"Consociation of Churches should be used, as occasion 
doth require. 

"Such consociations and Synods have allowance to coun- 
sell and admonish other Churches, as the case may require. 
And if they grow obstinate in errour or sinfull miscarriages, 
they should renounce the right hand of fellowship with them. 

" But they have no power to excommunicate. 

"Nor do their constitutions binde formaliter & juridice. 

"In all these I have leave to prof esse tJie joint judgement 
of all the Elders npon the river: of New-haven, Guilford, 
Milford, Stratford, Fairfield : and of most of the Elders of the 
Churches in the Bay, to whom I did send in particular, and 
did receive approbation from them under their hands : Of the 
rest {to whom I could not send) I cannot so affirm; but this I 
can say, That at a common meeting, 37 / was desired by them 
all, to publish what now I do." 36 



37 July I, 1645. See ante, p. 112. 

38 Since writing the foregoing pages, a carefully prepared Bibliography of 
Mr. Hooker's publications has been kindly furnished by the very competent 
hand of Dr. J. H. Trumbull. It will be found in Appendix V. 

19 



CHAPTER VII . 



THE QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. 

Upon the death of the first Pastor, the Church does not 
seem to have contemplated the possibility of long continuing 
with the services of only one minister. Mr. Stone was only 
forty-four years old, but the theory of the dual ministry, with 
which the New England churches had begun, was not yet 
worn out. So, measures were taken to secure a successor to 
Mr. Hooker. 

The seed planted in the founding of Harvard College, in 
1636, had already begun to bear fruit. As early as 1644, 
the Colony of Connecticut had taken measures "conserneing 
the mayntenaunce of scollers at Cambridge," ordering "that 
2 men shalbe appoynted in euery Towne w th in this Jurisdic- 
tion who shall demaund whch euery family will giue" to that 
object. 1 And now the Hartford Church, whose members had 
been contributors to the "scollers" at the college, turned to 
one of them as the successor of their Pastor. This was 
Jonathan Mitchell, born in Halifax, in England, in 1624, now 
twenty-five years of age, and destined, though dying early, 2 
to be one of the most famous of New England's ministers. 
He graduated at Harvard in 1647, and was apparently pursu- 
ing a course of study in divinity, when " the Church of Hart- 
ford .... being therein Countenanced and Encouraged by 



1 Col. Rec.f i, 112. 

3 July 9, 1668, aged about 44. 



1653-1659-] EFFORTS FOR HOOKER'S SUCCESSOR. i^y 

Mr. Stone, sent a Man, an Horse, above an Hundred miles, 
to obtain a visit from him, in expectation to make him the 
Successor of their ever famous Hooker." 2 

Mr. Mitchell came and preached on the first occasion of 
his public ministry anywhere, in this place, June 24, 1649. 
He, himself, was much depressed by the performance. But, 
it appears, the congregation was not. For, "that judicious 
Assembly of Christians .... in a Meeting the Day following 
Concluded to give him an Invitation to Settle among them ;" 
adding, that if he wished "to continue a year longer at the 
Colledge they would .... advance a considerable Sum of 
Money, to assist him in furnishing himself with a Library."* 
Mr. Mitchell was not, however, to become Pastor of the 
Hartford Church. He had made certain partial promises to 
Mr. Shepard, of Cambridge, to come back untrammeled 
from his Hartford expedition. He speedily preached in 
Mr. Shepard's pulpit, and on Mr. Shepard's death, which 
happened almost immediately after," he was called to the 
pastorate of that church, and was ordained there on August 
21st, 1650. 

It is probable that it was with more or less similar intent 
toward providing a successor in the vacant office — though 
with no such unanimity of action on the part of the congre- 
gation — that, at least, three other men preached in Hartford, 
for periods of uncertain extent, before the Church secured an 
associate for Mr. Stone. 

The first of these was the afterward celebrated Michael 
Wigglesworth, concerning the troublesome results of whose 
candidacy in this Church, for which he appears to have been 



3 Magnalia, ii, 72. 

4 Ibid. 

5 Aug. 25, 1649. 



I48 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

no way responsible, there will be ample and deplorable occa- 
sion hereafter, more fully to speak. Just here, it is enough 
to say that Mr. Wiggles worth was born in England, in 1631, 
brought in childhood to New England, educated in youth at 
Ezekiel Cheever's school in New Haven, and graduated at 
Harvard in 165 1. In April, 1654, being then twenty-three 
years old, he "stayd a ffourtnight at Hartford," and preached. 6 
But he had, apparently, not only preached there previously, 
but had received from Mr. Stone, and, perhaps, from the 
Church of Hartford, certain overtures the year previously, 
the precise nature of which cannot be determined. For he 
says, in his Diary, under date of August 27th, 1653, "I am 
both in a strait how to answ r Mr. Stone's motion & attend 
my father's counsel. I know not w l gods mind may be I 
am in y e dark." And again, underrate of Sept. 10th, of the 
same year, he writes: "I am at a strait concern, my answer 
to Hartford motion ; I am indifferet to engage or not, to look 
toward England or not, if I could be clear in gods call." 
But these overtures, whatever they were, failed, partly for 
reasons we shall afterwards more distinctly discern, to 
bring Mr. Wigglesworth to Hartford as a home. His Diary, 
under date of 17th of July, 1655, speaks of the "Maldon 
Invitation." He was, at some uncertain date, ordained at 
Maiden, Mass., where his pastoral connection, amid many 



6 Wigglesworth's Manuscript Diary. Mass. Hist. Society. The diary shows 
him again in Hartford, in March, 1655, staying some time. On this occasion he 
"got 2 horses at Wethersfield," of John Latimer, March 24, to "take my moth, 
to New Hauen." His mother had come up to Hartford to meet him, March 10th. 
John Latimer (fined August 1, 1639, for " vnseasonable and imoderate drink- 
ing," but serving as an honorable juryman afterward) seems to have been a 
horse-letting character. The General Court, February 23, 1652, passed this 
resolve : "This Courte Considering John Lattimor's loss in his horse that dyed 
in the Bay, being not willing that the whole loss should lye upon him, they are 
willing to allow him out of the publick treasury the sum of fifteen pounds 
towards his horse." Pub. Rec. } i, 237. 



1653-1659-] EFFORTS FOR HOOKER'S SUCCESSOR. I4 g 

vicissitudes on account of his physical infirmity, continued 
till his death, June 10, 1705. 7 

John Davis, too, a classmate of Wigglesworth at college, 
son of William Davis of New Haven, preached, as well as 
taught school, in Hartford in 1655. The town made grants 
to him A in payment for both kinds of service. 8 He was a 
young man of learning and promise, but, sailing in Novem- 
ber, 1657, on a voyage to England, was, together with the 
vessel, " never heard of more." 

Later still, for a more protracted period, John Cotton, son 
of the famous minister of the Boston church — who was born 
in 1640, and graduated at Harvard in 1657, and who studied 
divinity with Mr. Stone — preached in Hartford. In 1659 the 
town " did grant a rate of thirty pounds to be paid to Mr. 
Cotton for his labours amongst us, and his charges in coming 
up to us, the half of it to be paid presently and the other 
half to be paid at the end of the year." 9 This seemed like 



7 Mr. Wigglesworth was the author of the Day of Doom, and several other 
metrical " Composures." He was also a physician and practiced medicine at 
Maiden. He had many breaks in his ministry, owing to ill health, being, appar- 
ently, at one time, laid by for nearly twenty years ; but in his age was so much 
better that Cotton Mather, in his funeral sermon, was able to say of him: ;< It 
was a surprise unto us to see a Little Feeble Shadow of a Man, beyond Seventy, 
Preaching usually Twice or Thrice in a Week; Visiting and Comforting the 
Afflicted; Encouraging the Private Meetings, .... and attending the Sick, 
not only as Pastor but as Physician too." See Sibley's Harvard Graduates, 
vol. i, 259-286. 

8 " The precise time of his coming or going is uncertain. The town allowed 
him £\o 'for preaching and schooling ' to the 7th of February, 1655-6, and 
payment of an unpaid balance due him was ordered by the town, May 28, 
1656. A memorandum on the Town Records shows that the sum stipulated to 
be paid to Mr. Davis for the year 1655, was contributed or advanced before Jan- 
uary 20, 1655-6, by six individuals — John Richards, John White, [Samuel] 
Fitch, James Steele, Francis Barnard, and the widow of Wm. Gibbons — all of 
the ' South Side ' of Hartford, and three or four of whom were among the 
' withdrawers ' from the First church in 1656, or became members of the Sec- 
ond church in 1669-70." J. H. Trumbull, in Conn. Hist. Coll., ii, p. 54. 

9 Town Records. At the same date " Capt. Lord and Mr. John Allen " were 
appointed "to make Mr. Cotton's rate." The Colonial Records preserve (i, p. 



^O THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

something of permanence, but Mr. Cotton, after three or four 
years' residence here and at Wethersfield, returned to Boston 
unordained. 

During this period of more or less distinct effort to supply 
the vacant pastorate, one or two items of public action may 
be noted, which doubtless the Hartford Church had its share 
in. A code of laws was adopted by the General Court in 
May 1650, which, among other provisions, ordained the fol- 
lowing : 

" This Courte, judging it necessary that somemeanes should 
bee vsed to conuey the lighte and knowledge of God and his 
Worde to the Indians and Natiues amongst vs, doe order that 
one of the teaching Elders of the Churches in this Juriss- 
diction, with the helpe of Thomas Stanton, shall bee desired, 
twise at least in every yeare, to goe among the neighboring 
Indians and indeauou 1 ' to make knowne unto them the Coun- 
cells of the Lord." 10 

And later, September 23, 1654, the Commissioners of the 
United Colonies took the following action, in which the part 
of this Church is more definitely seen : 

" Vpon a motion made to y e Commissioners by Capt. Cul- 
lick from the Generall Courte of Connecticott to take into 
y e consideration y e instruction of y e Indians in theire Juris- 
diction, in y e knowledge of God, and their desire y* John 
Minor might bee entertained as an interpreter to communi- 
cate to y e said Indians those instructions w dl shali be deliu- 



346) the appointment, April n, 1660-1, of individuals " to assist Mr. Jo : Cotton 
in administration" of the estate of Thomas Welles; and (p. 359) Mr. Cotton's 
admission as freeman of the Colony, March 14, 1660-1. Mr. Cotton's subse- 
quent experiences, after leaving Connecticut, were diversified. He was ex- 
communicated from the Boston church in 1664, restored to fellowship the same 
year, and went to Martha's Vineyard. He went to Plymouth in 1667, was 
ordained there in 1669, dismissed in 1697, in a church quarrel of doubtful 
merits ; went to Charleston, S. C, and died there in September, 1699. He was 
a man of brilliant gifts and great acquisitions. See Sibley, i, pp. 496-508. 
llJ Col. Records, i, p. 531. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. j^ 

ered by Mr. Stone, Mr. Newton or any other allowed by the 
Courte, and allso y* y e said Minor may bee further instructed 
and fitted by Mr. Stone to bee a meete instrument to carry 
on the worke of propagating y e Gospell to y e Indians, y e 
Commissioners .... doe desire y e Magistrates of Connect- 
icott to take care y l y e said Minor be entertained at Mr. 
Stones or some other meet place, and they shall order y* due 
allowance bee made for his dyet and education out of the 
corporation stock." " 

But pleasant as are these tokens of Missionary spirit in 
the Colony and the Church, it is not this which most fills the 
pages of the story of those days. The period following a 
point about six years subsequent to Mr. Hooker's death, till 
four years before Mr. Stone's death — or from about 1653 to 
1659 inclusive — is remembered chiefly for a quarrel in the 
Hartford Church, of such virulence, contagiousness, and pub- 
licity, that it attracted the attention of all the churches in 
New England, and occupies a large place in every history of 
early ecclesiastical affairs in this Colony. 

From the perplexing and melancholy details of this con- 
troversy it would be agreeable to turn away. But it is one 
of the great facts of the Church's story which cannot be 
passed by. And it is a controversy, moreover, which all who 
have written on it, even from contemporaneous days to the 
present, have pronounced a difficult one fully to understand. 
Cotton Mather says " the true original of the misunderstand- 
ing .... has been rendered almost as obscure as the rise 
of Connecticut River. But it proved in its unhappy conse- 
quences, too like that great river in its great annual inunda- 
tions, for it overspread the whole Colony of Connecticut." ia 
Dr. Benjamin Turnbull says, what " began the dissension 



11 Ibid, p. 265, note. 

12 Magnalia, i, p. 394. 



152 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

does not fully appear," 13 but attributes its origin to a " differ- 
ence between the Rev. Mr. Stone and Mr. Goodwin, the rul- 
ing elder in the church, upon some nice points of Congrega- 
tionalism." M Dr. Bacon speaks of " that passage in our 
church history " as " an obscure one, the documents by which 
it might be illustrated having mostly perished." 15 All these 
writers on the Hartford quarrel were obliged to say what 
they did respecting it, in absence of certain very important 
papers relating to the controversy, extant, but then undis- 
covered. 16 The publication of these papers in the Collec- 
tions of the Historical Society of Connecticut in 1870, 
affords, for the partial solution of the trouble, a very impor- 
tant assistance. 

It has been customary before the discovery of the docu- 
ments above referred to — and indeed to some extent since 
then also — in the attempts which have been made to explain 
this troubled passage in this Church's history, to ascribe a 
very large agency in it, to the agitation of questions con- 
cerning baptism and the rights of children of baptized 
parents who were not themselves church members ~ 
questions which began, certainly, to be mooted before this 
period, and which came to open and demonstrated conflict in 
the rupture of the Church in 1670. But it may well be ques- 



13 Trumbull, i, p. 308. 

14 Ibid, p. 297. 



15 Contributions to Coin. Eccl. Hist., p. 15. 

16 These papers relating to the Hartford Church controversy, with the excep- 
tion of three, were discovered by Dr. Palfrey, among the Landsdown MSS. 
in the British Museum. They are, to a considerable extent, exparte ; i. e., 
it is the " Withdrawers' " side of the case which is mainly presented. There 
are several of the Withdrawers' letters to the Church; and letters to them by 
the counsellors they sought ; there are the "results" of one or two conferences 
and Councils, but nowhere a statement by the Hartford Church of its side of 
the controversy. The papers are in the Historical Society Collections, vol. ii, 
pp. 51-125. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. ^3 

tioned whether the influence of this factor of the problem has 
not been very much exaggerated in this quarrel of Stone's day, 
if indeed it can be said to have exerted any considerable 
agency. Not one of the twenty-one contemporaneous docu- 
ments, of various authorship, in the newly discovered papers 
published in the Historical Society Collection, speaks of this 
matter as in anyway an issue in debate. 17 And an attentive 
reading of the careful historian Dr. Trumbull, who wrote in 
ignorance of these papers, will show that even he con- 
ceived the agitation of the question of Baptism and of 
claims to church membership, to have been not of the sub- 
stance of the trouble, but a matter of " meanwhile," and for 
which certain parties " took this opportunity." 18 Dr. Trum- 
bull probably touches the real root of the affair when he 
speaks of the controversy as one concerning the " rights of 



17 This is a fact impossible to account for if the question of the rights of chil- 
dren of baptized parents, or of a title to^ church-membership based on baptism 
only, had been a recognized factor in the controversy. Somewhere in this vo- 
luminous mass of papers it would have found utterance in definite shape. Espe- 
cially in the long and careful letter of Mr. Davenport {Conn. Hist. Col., ii, pp. 88-93), 
who was so zealous a partisan on that question, and who afterward was so exer- 
cised by its emergence in this Hartford Church in the days of Whiting and 
Haynes, must distinct reference have been found to this element of the difficulty 
had it been an acknowledged element. Nor in that case could the Elders of the 
Bay have said of the cause of the controversy, as they did say in their letter to 
Mr. Goodwin and Capt. Cullick of the Withdrawing party {Ibid, p. 59-63) "the 
source of whose flames perplexeth vs day and night." Whereas on the con- 
trary, in all the seventy pages of lately-discovered documents now before us, not 
only is there no statement of any such question as involved in the controversy, 
but there is only one sentence of three lines which can even be interpreted as 
making an allusion to the existence of any debate on such questions at all. It 
was, in truth, the largely personal element in the controversy which was the per- 
plexing element. The issue was not, in this earlier struggle, the broad one of 
the rights of baptized persons or their children ; but, at least chiefly, the rights 
of the minority of the Hartford Church known as the Withdrawers, and those 
of the majority led by the very pronounced officiality of Mr. Stone, and involv- 
ing opposing convictions of the due rights and prerogatives of each. 

is Trumbull, i, 297, 298. 
20 



!54 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

the brotherhood," 19 and the conviction entertained by Mr. 
Goodwin that these rights had been disregarded. 

Regarding this as the only view of the matter consistent 
with the documents- in the case, the story of the quarrel will 
now be attempted ; reserving the narrative of the controversy 
concerning baptismal rights, which to some extent ran par- 
allel with this, incidentally mixed itself with it, continued 
after it, and finally resulted in the separation of the Second 
Church of Hartford from the First, to that independent 
treatment which really belongs to it. 

All accounts agree that the Hartford Church difficulty 
began in antagonism between Teaching-Elder Stone and 
Ruling-Elder Goodwin. 20 What was the occasion of that 
antagonism ? 

Whatever elements in the pronounced characters of these 
two men, in the undefined limitations of their ecclesiastical 
functions, and in the special relationship of intimacy between 
Mr. Goodwin and the late Pastor of the Church, may have 
made ' such antagonism one easy to develop, it is in a high 
degree probable that a more definite and recognizable 
occasion can be found, from a careful study of the whole 
case. 

It has been noticed that at different periods in 1653 and 



19 Ibid, p. 297. The suggestion of Dr. Bacon (Contributions, etc., p. 15) that 
there was involved in the controversy " a conflict between opposite principles of 
ecclesiastical order," is an accurate one. Only it may be doubted if he or any 
one has given allowance enough for the strength of the personal element in- 
volved in the whole conflict. 

20 This is the traditionary account as given in all the histories ; and it is 
sharply confirmed by the contemporaneous letter of Rev. John Higginson of 
Guilford in his testimony and counsel concerning the reception of the With- 
drawers by the Church of Wethersfield (Hist. Coll., ii, p. 93). " In the first break- 
ing out of the difference betwixt M r Stone and M 1 ' Goodwin I did what lay in 
mee to disswade them from a Counsell in this case, and rather perswaded to a 
more priuate and brotherly way of healing, before the church there was engaged 
unto parties." 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. j^ 

1654- Michael Wigglesworth preached at Hartford, and 
awaited the development of certain " motions " there. It is 
also distinctly in evidence, for he acknowledges it himself, 
that Mr. Stone "hindered y e church from declaring their 
apprehensions by vote (upon y e day in question) concerning 
Mr. Wigglesworth's fitnes for office in y e church of Hart- 
ford." 21 Mr. Stone admits that, in a general way, "it is a 
liberty of y e church to declare their apprehensions by vote 
about y e fitness of a p r son for office upon his Tryall ; " but 
proceeds to say, " I look upon it as a received Truth y l an 
officer may in some cases lawfully hinder y e church fro put- 
ting forth at this or y* time an act of her liberty." 22 

It seems that this high conception of his official preroga- 
tive was not allowed to be so much of a " received Truth " 
as the Teacher asserted. . Stormy "meetings" of the Church 
followed, in which " the charge of infringement " of the pre- 
rogatives of others in this act of the Teacher, was urged by 
Mr. Goodwin, but in which the majority of the Church stood 
by the Teacher and "acquitted" him. But the charge, 
though rejected by the Church after debate in two meetings, 
was again preferred in a formal paper by Mr. Cullick, to 
which the Church sent a reply. 23 

The agitation, however, continued, and, at some meeting 
of the Church, Mr. Stone was so far wrought upon as to 



21 Hist. Coll., ii, 71. 

22 Ibid. 

23 Ibid, 72. The answer of the Church is lost. See also p. 53 for notes of 
Mr. Cullick's interview with Mr. Stone. In this interview Mr. Cullick is re- 
ported to have said : " If he [the candidate in question] had declared that we 
had not taken content in his tryall the Church might have had no other con- 
sideration ; but he not declaring any such, then it lieth on our part to hold 
forth something to him, that we either do like or approve of him or do not." 
To which Mr. Stone replied : " I do not think it is necessarie for him to 
expresse any dislike. M 1 ' Michall never expressed any dislike when he left the 
congreg: As we are not to express any dislike of him, that must be knowne 
first, whether he go to the Bay absolutelie resolved neu r to return." 



j^6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

resign his office. The account of this is one of the docu- 
ments of the minority, and may perhaps be received with 
allowance for some partisan coloring. Mr. Stone is reported 
to have said : 

" That he would lay downe his place and office power ; 
That he should not improve that power or act as an officer 
any more amongst them ; That hee would not have the ch : 
thinke they were nothing but great words, but hee would 
haue them Assure themselves hee did not onely say it, but 
hee would doe it ; tooke his leave of the Congregations thank- 
ing them for all their Loue and Respect to him, telling them 
that if any Bro : thought he had recieued more then his 
Labo r s deseured he would restore it to y m . . . . but that if 
he could doe any th : for the ch : where euer hee came, in pro- 
curing them another in his roome, hee would doe it ; for 
another might doe good in this place though he could not ; 
that hee clearly saw' that his worke was done in this place, 
and that hee had the Advice of the Ablest Elders in the Bay 
for what hee did." 24 

Obviously the Teacher was in a good deal of heat, and very 
probably strongly provoked thereto. So doubtless was Mr. 
Goodwin ; but the thing which must most strongly have gone 
against his grain, was his practical deposition from the Ruling 
Eldership — and consequently from the official headship of the 
Church, now that Mr. Stone had resigned — by the "choice of 
a moderator " by the Church, in accordance with the advice 
of Mr. Stone, "to lead the ch : in his roome." 25 

The minority hereupon apparently withdrew from com- 
munion with the Church. But being remonstrated with 
therefor, by letters received from Mr. Stone — again acting, it 
would seem, in the official capacity he had renounced — and 
others of the brethren, they replied, March 12, 1656, refusing 



24 Ibid, 58-59. 

25 Ibid, pp. 59, 72. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. i$j 

to recognize Mr. Stone as an officer of the Church, and call- 
ing for " an Able and Indifferent Councell mutually chosen " 
to consider the whole case. 26 

The Church thereupon addressed another letter to the 
Withdrawers, apparently nominating a Council of Elders 
from the Bay, and proposing certain conditions of agree- 
ment. 27 To this letter the Withdrawers rejoined, March 20, 
1656, objecting to the Council nominated by the Church as 
not being " a Councell agreed vpon by the consent of the 
whole Church ; " urging that the Council might be chosen from 
"within the compass of these two neighboring Colonies, viz.: 
New Hauen and o r owne, and that out of them each party 
might haue the choice of the Elders of 4 or 5 Churches ; " and 
asking, if such a Council could not be had, that they and 
their wives and children might have dismission " to some 
approued Church or Churches of Christe." 28 

Apparently the Church granted this very reasonable 
request for a mutual Council, at least so far that one com- 
posed of several Elders of this Colony, and Mr. Prudden of 
New Haven Colony, assembled in Hartford on June n, 
1656. 29 

The decision of this Council, as it was afterwards stated 
by Mr. Davenport 30 and Mr. Higginson, 31 and confirmed by 



26 This letter is signed by John Webster, at this time Deputy Governor, John 
Cullick, Nathaniel Ward, Andrew Bacon, Andrew Warner, John White, John 
Crow, Thomas Standley, John Barnard, Gregory Wolerton, John Arnold, Zach- 
ary Fild, Richard Church, George Steele, Ozias Goodwin, Will. Partrigg, John 
Marsh, Isaac Graues, Beniamen Harbert, Wm. Leawis, Thomas Bunc. It will 
be observed William Goodwin's name does not appear. Possibly he was not 
included in the letter sent by the Church to the withdrawing party. Ibid, pp. 

54-55- 

27 This letter is lost. Its propositions can only be inferred from the reply. 

28 Ibid, pp. 56-58. 

29 None of the Bay Elders seem to have been on this Council. 

30 Ibid, pp. 88-93. 

31 Ibid, pp. 93-100. 



158 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

a letter of the Withdrawers 32 to the Church under date of 
March 13, 1657, was a substantial vindication of the position 
of the minority, as against the arbitrary procedures of Mr. 
Stone and the Church. Its definite recommendations were 
that "satisfaction for mutuall offences" be given, or that 
" dismission of the dissenting brethren" be granted, "in case 
of non-satisfaction." 

The Withdrawing party always afterward contended that 
they had tendered the " satisfaction " which the Council 
enjoined, but that the Church had failed to do either of the 
things demanded. And this view of the case is supported 
by the statements of Davenport and Higginson. 

But for some reason, not now altogether explicable, the 
Church disregarded the findings of the Council ; and Mr. 
Stone, at a later point of the controversy — viz., March 25, 
1658 33 — stigmatized it, in a paper addressed to the General 
Court, as "canciled and of no force." And even at the 
present moment of the Council's verdict, he apparently 
accompanied or immediately followed the publication of the 
Result with his own published " considerations " upon it, 
intended to break its power. 34 The Elders of the Council, 
thus impeached in their judgments by the Teacher's publica- 
tion against their conclusions, rejoined, 35 and the trouble 
only spread wider. 

In August, following this Council of June, 1656, Mr. Stone 
was in Boston, and had interviews with the elders there. 3P 

Five of the most distinguished of them, John Wilson and 



32 ibid, pp. 68-70. 

33 Col. Rec, \, p. 317. 

31 Hist. Coll., ii, p. 90; and p. 72, where Mr. Stone says : "In publishing my 
considerations together w th y e determinations of y e late reverend Assembly at 
that time, I acted unseasonably." This is under date of April 18, 1657. 

'■'•■' Ibid, p. 90. 

3ti Ibid, p. 60. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. j^g 

John Norton of the Boston church, Richard Mather of Dor- 
chester, Samuel Whiting of Lynn, and John Sherman of 
Watertown, were moved to write a letter to Captain John 
Cullick and Elder Goodwin, of the withdrawing party, 
deploring the continuance of the difficulties; "Vnable w th 
longer silence to behold y e wound of so famous a sister church 
and mother in Israel, still bleeding, if not vlcerating ;" declar- 
ing that the source of the troubles " perplexeth vs day and 
night," and tendering their offices of aid in the settlement of 
the contention, either by having the representatives of the 
two parties in the Hartford Church " come together unto the 
Bay," or by themselves going to Hartford, if that were 
deemed more convenient. The letter continues with fervent 
exhortations to avoid the 

" Scandall of an incurable breach . . . and y e reproach 
of the Congregationall way. The greater the Name of your 
church hath bene, the greater will the wounde bee, given by 

your breach to y* name of Jesus It is more bitter 

than death y l miserable wee should survive the worthyes late 
deceased and leaving the churches in peace w th vs, to see 
them perish by home-bred contention, both in our sight and 

vnder our charge We doubt not but speech will then 

be excused when to be speechlesse were inexcusable. Our 
bowels ! our bowels ! we are payned at the very hearts, we 
canot hold our penn." 

The letter concludes by saying that " M r . Stone will stay 
here till we heare from you." 3r 

Apparently the proposition to go to the Bay was not accept- 
able to the gentlemen to whom the letter was addressed, for 
in September following another letter was sent — this time by 
several churches in Massachusetts — to the Hartford Church 
entreating the latter still " to continue together," until "a 



Ibid, pp. 59-6^ 



l6o THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

second meeting, consisting of some fro hence w th some also 
of yo r selves, y e late reverend Councell, w frh any others you 
shall see cause," might be had as a further expedient of 
peace. The letter furthermore exhorts the Church, on the 
one hand, not to be in haste " to purg out y e old leven " by 
way of discipline ; and the Withdrawers, on the other, not to 
be in haste to depart, alleging that " intempestive secession 
w r a sinn." It points out the scandal it would be to have it 
said that this "was y e first church w c h proved incurable under 
all meanes applicable in y e congregationall way," and declares 
that " the ill savo 1 ' of such a breach cannot be suppressed 
w th in the limmits of the Colonies." 38 

Apparently the Church accepted this suggestion of the 
sister churches of the Bay, and made an overture to the 
Withdrawers to join with the Church in submitting the case 
to their counsel and that of the elders of the former Council 
united with them. 39 

This proposition of the Church was seconded by the ever- 
meddlesome General Court which, on the 26th of February, 
1657, expressed its desire that the elders of the Council of 
June previous, should be ready to meet with the elders of the 
Bay in their proposed visit to Hartford; that Hartford Church 
should invite them for this purpose, unless, indeed, the elders 
of the June Council could themselves compose the troubles and 
make the errand of the Massachusetts elders unnecessary ; and 
that Mr. Stone and the Church should state in their letters to 
the members of the former Council " in writing the p'ticulars 
wherein they are not sattisfyed " with its determinations. 
Mr. Cullick, Mr. Steele, and Governor Webster opposed this 



38 Ibid, pp. 64-68. Just what churches united in this overture does not 
appear. 

39 Here again the Church's overture is lost. The only clue to the terms is the 
Withdrawers' reply. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. I 6 I 

action of the Court as uncalled for, in view of the fact that a 
Council had already given its opinions in the matter, and had 
been disregarded. 40 The Withdrawers, too, answered the 
Church's proposition negatively. 41 They urged that the 
Church had not yielded " to that councell that is already 
giuen," in either part of it, whether respecting satisfaction or 
dismission ; that they knew of no " rule to call another 
councill;" and suggested caustically that the Church's "in- 
terteynment " of the advice of the members of the Council 
already met in June previous, would not " be any incoradge- 
ment to them to com againe." 

Whatever fault of temper may perhaps have characterized 
the minority, this position was ecclesiastically sound. Nev- 
ertheless, by some means or other, they were apparently 
induced to waive their objections to a meeting with the Bay 
elders for the hearing of the whole case. 

Accordingly, as soon as departing snows would allow of 
journeying, John Norton, teacher of the Boston church, and 
representatives of six other churches 42 of the Bay, set out 
for Hartford, on the 6th of April. 43 

Their departure on their pacifying errand was made the 
special occasion of a day of prayer on the 16th, by the Bos- 
ton church, and probably by the other Massachusetts churches 
and of " solemn humiliation in their behalf." 

Met in Hartford, with the two parties face to face, the 
Church and the Withdrawers, progress seemed difficult. 44 Ap- 



40 Col. Records, i, pp. 290-291. 

41 In a letter of March 13, 1657, signed by John Webster, John CulHck, Wil- 
liam Goodwin, and Andrew Bacon. Hist. Coll., pp. 68-70. It will be observed 
that two of the signers had already opposed the project in the General Court 
of February previous. 

42 Hist. Coll.) p. 79. Barding's Complaint. 

43 Hull's Diary, Archceologica Americana, iii, p. 180. 

44 Hull writes {Ibid, p. 180) under date of April 23d : " We received letters 

21 



l§2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659 

parently all the papers in the case, together with the conclu- 
sions of the Council of June 1656, were put in evidence. 
Mr. Stone's refusal to let the Church take a vote on 
Mr. Wigglesworth's candidacy ; iA his resignation of his 
office ; 46 the choice of a moderator " to lead the ch: in his 
roome ; " 47 reports of conversations, 48 and the various let- 
ters of the Church and the minority 49 were undoubtedly 
passed in review. 

What acknowledgments, if any, the Withdrawers made 
does not appear — Time seemingly having preserved the 
positive side of the case with jealous care and hidden its 
reverse, taking an opposite course with that of the Church — 
but Mr. Stone put in an acknowledgment, which, though its 
main points have been incidentally spoken of and partly 
quoted before, is so illustrative of the High views of official 
prerogative held by the Teacher, as well as of certain quali- 
ties of his personal character, that it may be best to present 
it here. 

"1. I acknowledge y l it a liberty of y e church to declare 
their apprehensions by vote about y e fitness of a p r son for 
office upon his Try all. 

" 2. I look at it as a recieved Truth y* an officer may in 
some cases lawfully hinder y e church fr5 putting forth at this 
or y 4 time an act of her liberty. 

"3. I acknowledge y l I hindered y e church fro declaring 
their apprehensions by vote (upon y e day in question) con- 
cerning Mr. Wigglesworth's fitnes for office in y e church of 
Hartford. 



from Hartford, and understood that the work of reconciliation went very slowly 
forward." 

45 Hist. Coll., p. 71. 

46 Ibid, pp. 58-59. 

47 Ibid, p. 59. 
™ Ibid, p. 53. 

™ Ibid, pp. 54-58. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. ^3 

" 4. I am not conscious to myselfe y l I intended therein 
y e least just grievance to any brother, yet w n I diserned 
that it was grievous to diverse brethren, and I had expressed 
my own apprehensions about y e rule in y e case, I should 
have been willing to have left y e church (had they desired it) 
to their liberty in voting. 

" 5. As concerning y e manner of y e carriage of this busi- 
nesse I suspect myself, that I might faile therein : And 
whatever error or failing therein God shall discover to me 
by y e helpe of any of y e Elders of y e late reverend Assem- 
bly, or of y e dissenting brethren, taking in y e help of y e 
messengers fro y e churches of y e bay, my hearty desire is not 
only freely to acknowledge it, but heartily to be thankfull to 
any or all of y m by whom such light shall be p r sented. 

"6. In publishing my considerations together w th y e 
determinations of y e late reverend Assembly at that time, I 
acted unseasonably. 

Sam: Stone. 50 

This 18 th of 2™. 

1657." 

But by some good means an apparent reconciliation was 
arrived at. An " instrument of pacification " was " read, 
voted, and owned solemnly before God, angels and men ; " 51 
the Withdrawers agreed "to walke with [the Church] as 
formerly;" and the elders of Massachusetts returned on 
the 6th of May, and carried word that the Lord had " gra- 
ciously wrought the Church at Hartford to a reunion, and a 
mutual promise to bury all former differences in silence for 
the future." 52 

But the peace was of short duration. In June, Mr. Stone 
went to Boston to attend the Synod called by Massachusetts, 



50 Ibid, pp. 71-72. 

51 Ibid, p. 117. 

52 Hull's Diary, Arch. Amer., iii, 180. An agreement which would manifestly 
have been impossible had the vital problem of the rights appertaining to Bap- 
tism been the question at issue. 



164 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

to which there will be occasion hereafter more particularly 
to refer. Apparently he continued there from June into 
August ; for on the second of that month, a letter, sent by 
him from the Bay, with certain propositions annexed, was 
presented to the Church. 53 The letter speaks of the writer's 
love for the Church, but also of his being " now aged ' si and 
weake," and troubled with " diuers infirmities " of body ; of 
there being " no Phisician at Hartford or neare at hande ; " 
of his being " vtterly vnable to act those great and difficult 
matters of Church governm 1 w ch must be attended to ;" and 
therefore suggests whether it is not best for him to " haue 
liberty to remove to some other place where [his] worke 
may be more easy and tolerable and where [he] may live to 
doe some service for Christ." The propositions with which 
this letter was accompanied demanded, first, that the Church 
at Hartford should " submitt toe every doctrine " propounded 
to them by their Teacher, "grounded vppon the sacred 
Scriptures ;" second, that the Church should "bynde them- 
selues not toe offer toe induce or bring in any officer to ioyn 
with Samuel Stone against his will and right reason, and 
without his consent and approbation;" third, that the Church 
give Mr. Stone liberty to secure an assistant whom the 
Church should approve, " if Samuell Stone can give in suffi- 
cient testimony and evydence of .... his fitnes for that 
employment ; " and, fourth, that the Church " procure some 
able phisitian to dwell and setle heere in Hartford before the 
next October." 

This letter and propositions annexed, seem to have been 



53 Hist. Coll., pp. 73-77. 

54 He was now fifty-five years old. Dr. Rosseter of Guilford, the nearest edu 
cated physician, had been consulted heretofore by Mr. Stone; the town having 
voted, Jan. 7, 1656, ^"io "towards Mr. Stone's charge of Phissick which he hath 
taken of Mr. Rosseter." 



i6 S3- t6 59-1 QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. ify 

a firebrand in the rubbish of the old quarrel. The minority 
denounced it as a " breach of the pacification ; " 55 angry words 
of crimination and recrimination followed between Mr. Stone 
and some of the Withdrawers ; 56 and the controversy pro- 
voked Mr. Stone to refuse to administer the Sacrament, 57 
and also to proceed to some acts of discipline. 58 

Whereupon the withdrawing party issued a letter to the 
churches of the Colony, enclosing a statement 59 of the 
grounds of their withdrawal, and asking a "favorable con- 
struction" of their course. This letter was sent to and 
publicly read in the several churches. 

This procedure was resented by the majority, " as tending 
to the defamation of M r Stone and the Ch : at Hartford, and 
to the breach of the peace of the Ch s and comonwealth ; " 
and a petition to the General Court was presented by seven 
members of the Church, denying the truthfulness of the 
statements in the Withdrawers' letter, and asking for " relief e, 
helpe, and direction." The petition presents, also, distinct 
charges of violation of covenant, " not only made but lately 
renewed in a solemne manner," by the Withdrawers. 60 

Meantime, Mr. Stone replied to the circular letter of the 



55 Hist. Coll., p. 77. 56 Ibid, p. 105. 5 < Ibid, p. 114. 

58 Ibid, p. 115. See also Hull's Diary, p. 183. "The breach at Hartford 
again renewed ; God leaving Mr. Stone, their officer, to some indiscretion, as to 
neglect the Church's desire in the celebration of the Lord's Supper, and to pro- 
ceed to some acts of discipline toward the formerly dissenting brethren." 

59 The statement is lost. The letter is dated Nov. 11, 1657, and signed by 
John Webster, John Cullick, and William Goodwin. Ibid, pp. 77-78. 

60 Ibid, pp. 79-80. The paper is dated Dec. 4, 1657. The General Court 
postponed action ; but Rev. Mr. Russell of Wethersfield, was summoned before 
the Quarter Court at Hartford to answer to reading the Withdrawers' letter in 
his church, (p. 78, note.) An additional token may here be noted of the absence 
of any recognizable connection between this quarrel and the Half-way Covenant 
controversy, in the fact that Mr. Russell, here censured, and to whose church 
the Withdrawers resorted, was himself, this same year, one of the Synod which 
endorsed the Half-way Covenant principle, as one of the four Connecticut dele- 
gates. Col. Rec, i, 288. 



l66 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

Withdrawers, in a letter 61 which has suffered the usual fate 
of the documents on the Church side of the quarrel ; and 
the Withdrawers issued another, 62 disclosing the fact that 
they had already propounded themselves for admission to 
the church at Wethersfield as members there. They were 
greatly strengthened and encouraged in this course by two 
elaborate papers " — drawn up, apparently, on enquiries made 
by the Wethersfield church respecting the propriety of admit- 
ting the Withdrawers to their fellowship — by Rev. John 
Higginson of Guilford, and Rev. John Davenport of New 
Haven. 

Both these communications support the position of the 
Withdrawers in all the main points of the controversy up to 
the act of withdrawing ; respecting which particular act, 
however, Mr. Higginson has "had some scruple," yet sees 
"not why they should bee so farre blamed .... as to bee 
disowned or deserted in their cause." 64 Mr.- Davenport sug- 
gests an appeal to the old Council of June 1656, for appro- 
bation of the Withdrawers' reception to the Wethersfield 
church, " w ch being done in a way of approving yo r admit- 
tance of them," he sees no reason for withholding fellowship 
from the Wethersfield church for so receiving them, or from 
them for thus separating from the Hartford Church. 65 

At this juncture, however, the General Court once more 
put in a hand. It "ordered" on the nth of March, 1658, 66 
in view of the difficulties 

"Betwixt the Ch: of Christ at Hartford and the with- 



61 Ibid, p. 86. 

62 Ibid, pp. 86-7. Feb. 12, 1658. 

63 Ibid, pp. 88-100. 
04 Ibid, p. 98. 

65 Ibid, p. 92. 

66 Col. Records, i, 312. 



1653-1659] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. ifiy 

drawers, .... that there bee from henceforth an vtter cessa- 
tion of all further p r secution, either on the Ch s : part at 
Hartford toward the withdrawers from them ; and on the 
other part that those that haue withdrawen from the Ch : at 
Hartford shall make a cessation in p'secuting their former 
p'positions to the Ch : at Wethersfeild or any other Ch : in 
reference to their joyning therein Ch: relation, vntill the 
matters in controuersy betwixt the Ch : of Hartford & the 
brethren that haue withdrawen bee brought to an issue in 
that way that the Court shall determine." 

The Court also, at the same time, ordered an adjournment 
for a fortnight, to meet with the elders of the vicinity to consult 
" vpon some speedy course for the issuing the p r sent troubles." 

Probably as a result of this conference, the Court, on 
March 24th, the day of the adjournment spoken of above, 
further ordered 67 that the Church of Hartford and Mr. Stone 
should have an interview with the Withdrawers, attended by 
the governor, John Winthrop, and the deputy-governor, 
Thomas Welles, to see if they could not arrive at "some 
mutuall conclusions that may put an end vnto their vnhappy 
discention;" and in case they " cannot agree . . . that 
then there bee lett rs sent to the Bay Eld ls & to any among 
vs or in the other Iurisdiction, for advice what the Court 
should doe in the p r mises." 

On May 20th, following, the Court met again, and a peti- 
tion was presented by Mr. Stone that certain "Questions 
here p r sented may be sillogistically reasoned before this 
hono r d Court," by himself and some representative of the 
Withdrawers, "face to face." The points he wished argued 
were that the Council of June 1656, "is vtterly cancild and 
of no force;" that there had been "no violation of the last 



W Col. Rec. y i, 314. 



r 68 TH E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

agreemV made in the presence of the elders of the Bay in 
April, 1657, on the part of the Church of Hartford, or its 
Teacher; that " the withdrawen Brethren" had violated it; 
that they were still "members of the Ch : of Christ at Hart- 
ford;" that their withdrawing "is a sin exceeding scandalous 
& dreadful ; " and that the question at issue was a question 
"between the Ch : . . and the withdrawen p r sons," and "not 
in the hands of the Churches" generally. 08 

But, by this time, the Withdrawers seem to have given up 
the struggle. On the same day on which the above petition 
of Mr. Stone was ordered on record by the Court, Capt. 
Cullick and William Goodwin, being in Boston for the pur- 
pose, petitioned the General Court there, in their own and 
other's behalf, for leave .to settle up the River, out of the 
jurisdiction of Connecticut, and within the "pious and godly 
government" of Massachusetts. 69 That Court, on the 25th of 
the month, gave them leave, but coupled the permission with 
the condition that "they submit themselves to a due and 
orderly hearing of the differences between themselues and 
their brethren." 

Such "due and orderly hearing" the General Court of 
Connecticut undertook to provide for; for, on August 18th, 
1658, it ordered that both parties to the controversy should 
formulate their grievances and debate them among them- 
selves ; or should debate them publicly before six elders, three 
chosen by each party, as final referees ; in which alternative, if 
either party declined to choose, the Court would choose for it. 
The Church party refused to choose. So the Court chose for 
it, and the elders designated were requested to meet in 
Hartford on the 17th of September. 70 



08 Ibid, p. 317. 

69 Hist. Hadley (Judd), pp. 18-19. 

70 Col. Rec.y pp. 320-321. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. j6g 

The Court, in furtherance of the scheme, wrote by the 
hand of Daniel Clark its secretary, to the churches of 
Boston, Cambridge, and Roxbury, requesting the presence 
of "M r Norton, M r Michil, M r Cobbit, and M r Damforth." 71 

Dr. Trumbull rests the responsibility for the failure of this 
device, on the Hartford Church, where, possibly, it belongs, 
as the Church had, apparently, not approved of it from the 
outset. 72 Nevertheless this is not certain, for the Teacher 
seems to have prepared for the discussion ; there remaining 
on record, under date of Sept. 7th, ten days before the 
assembly was to gather, a list of eleven specifications against 
the Withdrawers ; mainly, amplifications of the points of his 
petition, put on record in May previous, but with some others 
added. 73 

So the autumn and winter drifted by ; the difficulty yet 
uncomposed, and the people who were planning to go up to 
Hadley, not yet having secured the "due and orderly" settle- 
ment of their difficulties, on which their permission to come 
within the "godly" jurisdiction of Massachusetts depended. 

Something must be done. So the General Court inter- 
fered again. On the 9th of March, 1659, ^ passed this 
extraordinary resolve : 74 

"This Court taking into consideration the continued 
troubles and distance twixt the Ch : at Hartford and the 
w th drawen party, after further indeauours for a concurrenc 
and vnanimity to cal in some help from abroad, and findeing 
their labours herin invalid, haue now ordered and appoynted 
a council to be called by y e Court (leaueing each party to y r e 
liberty whether they wil send or noe,) to be helpful in issue- 
ing the Questions in controuersy. 



71 Hist. Coll., p. 101. Aug. 26, '58. 

72 Hist. Conn., i, 306. 

73 Hist. Coll., pp. 104-105. 

74 Col. Records, i, 333-334. 

22 



iy THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

" Its ordered that those Chs : (whose Elders were re- 
quested to come hither) 75 should be desired by L rs from y e 
Secretary, in the name of the Court, to send vs one from 
each Ch : of their ablest instruments, to be p r sent at Hart- 
ford, by the third of June next, to assist in heareing and 
issueing these differences. 

" Its alsoe ordered and expected by the Court, that the 
Quasst s in controversy shalbe publiquely disputed in the 
p r sence of the Council according to the former order. 76 And 
y l each party, both y e Church at Hartford and y e withdraw- 
ers, shal ioyntly concur in bearing the charges of the former 
Council, and in p r pareing and provideing for this y l is now 
to be called." 

This scheme of a Council appointed by the Court, " leaue- 
ing each party to y r e liberty whether they wil send or noe," 
but charging its expenses on the parties who had no voice in 
its call, failed, as it deserved to do. Letters were, indeed, 
sent by the Court, over the hand of Daniel Clarke, its secre- 
tary, asking for a meeting at Hartford, on the 3d of June ; 
letters, however, which plainly showed that the parties con- 
cerned were not agreed in the invitation. " Both parties are 
desirous to have y e case come to trial, but refuse to act 
ioyntly in and about y e way of calling for help." 77 

The churches of Boston and Roxbury, at least, declined to 
come at such a governmental summons, which "neyther the 
Church (or major part) nor yet the part y t is w th drawne 
(much less both of them)" had had any consent in inviting ; 
concluding that an assent, under such circumstances, would 
be " little lesse then taking up an holy and sacred ordinance 
of God in vaine." 78 Very possibly, other churches took a 



75 And who came in April, 1657. 

76 The abortive scheme of Aug. 18, 1658. 

77 Hist. Coll., pp. 105-107. 

78 Ibid, pp. 108-109. The letter is signed by John Wilson and John Eliot, 
pastors of the Boston and Roxbury churches respectively, and their associates, 
representative of the churches, and bears date May 19, 1659. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. jyi 

similar view of the case. At all events, the June Council 
of 1659, never assembled. 79 

Convinced apparently, at last, of the need of some show 
of cooperation by the parties to the case, in anything fit to 



79 Dr. Trumbull's very explicit statement of the fact and results of a council 
on June 3d, has been followed by Felt, and by others even since the discovery 
of the Mss. published in the second volume of the Connecticut Historical 
Society. Dr. Trumbull's mistake was probably owing to a misinterpretation 
of the language used in the resolution of the Court of June 15th, 1659, as an 
order calling back the Council invited March 9th, and which was to have met, 
had it met at all, on June 3d ; instead of being a call of a Council by agreement 
of the Church and the Withdrawers, composed of the churches whose elders 
met in Hartford in April, 1657, and two other churches nominated by the 
Withdrawers. But that he was mistaken in a statement which, in its subsequent 
acceptance, rests on no other authority than his declaration, seems evident : 
1. From the inherent improbability of a re-summons, in June, by a new act of 
the Court, of a council ex hypothesi held so recently as June 3d, previous, for 
consideration of the same matters ; 2. Because the resolution of the Court, of 
June 15th, speaking of the elders and messengers "that were of the former 
Council at Hartford," includes Boston and Roxbury — language appropriate if 
the council of April 1657 is referred to, but wholly inappropriate if a Council 
on June 3d is supposed referred to, as those churches distinctly declined to 
attend; 3. Because the number of the churches invited on the 15th of June, 
1659, is identical with that of the churches represented in the Council of 
April, 1657 (see Barding's memorial to the General Court, Hist. Coll., p. 79), 
with the addition, distinctly specified, of two more on " the nomination of the 
Withdrawers ; " 4. Because the " Sentence of the Councell held at Boston Sept. 
26, 1659," which gives final summation of the whole case, makes no reference 
in its careful enumeration of the means hitherto used in the case, to any Council 
in June previous, but speaks only of the " great labour of the Reverend Coun- 
cill held in Hartford in '56; the poore service of ye church Messengers from 
hence in '57, the severall occasionall Letters," etc., an unaccountable omission 
had any Council been held in June, 1659; 5. Because Hubbard, who was 
of the Council of September 26, 1659, and ex hypothesi of the June Council, 
makes no allusion to any such Council when treating of this subject (see his 
History, p. 570); 6. Because the reference in the resolution of the General 
Court, of June 15, 1659, to "the experim* y 1 hath been made" of the labors of a 
former assembly, " and the good issue y 1 was effected thereby," is fully satisfied 
by the pacification "subscribed, read, voted and owned solemnly, before God, 
Angels and Men" (see Hist. Coll., p. 117) in April, 1657; 7. Because the 
theory of a Council in June rests solely on the statement of Dr. Trumbull ; in- 
troduces confusion rather than order into the narrative ; is opposed to some 
main facts of it, e. g. the refusals of the Boston and Roxbury churches, and in- 
volves the other churches in the condition of having yielded to a call the irreg- 
ularity of which Boston and Roxbury distinctly pointed out. 



lj 2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD.. [1653-1659. 

be called a Congregational Council, the General Court made 
one more endeavor — and in this particular Church trouble, its 
last — to provide for a settlement. 

On June 15, 1659, tne Court took this action : 79 
" This Court iudgeth it necessary that several of y e Ch s of 
X* in the Massatuset should be sent vnto, and desired to 
afford the help of their Reu'end Elders and worthy messen- 
gers that were of the former Council at Hartford, vnto whom 
are added, by the nomination of the withdrawers, the teach- 
ing Elders of Dorchester and Water Towne. The Ch s to be 
sent to, whose help is requested, are Boston, Camb:, Roxb:, 
Dorchester, Ipsw:, Dedham, Water T:, Charles Towne, Sud- 
bury ; seauen whereof the withdrawers consented to ; the 
Court and Ch : assenting to and desiringe all or so many as 
the Lord shall incline or enable to attend the worke ; vnto 
whose decisue power, the withdrawen partie is required, the 
Ch: at Hartford freely engaging to submit according to the 

order of ye Gosple The Council fore-mentioned is 

requested to be at Hartford the 19th of August, the time of 
their hearing the matters in differenc publiquely debated, 
according to former ord 1 ', to be with al convenient speed after 
their comeing vp." 

For some reason the Council did not meet at Hartford on 
the 19th of August, but at Boston on the 26th of Septem- 
ber. It was composed of nine churches and seventeen mem- 
bers. 80 Both parties appeared before the Council " in their 



7»CW.ie«\,p,339- 

80 Boston : Rev. John Wilson, Rev. John Norton, and Edward Tyng. 

Cambridge : Rev. Chas. Chauncey, President of the College, and Rev. Jona- 
than Mitchell. 

Roxbury : Rev. John Eliot, Rev. Saml. Danforth, and Isaac Heath. 

Dorchester : Rev. Richard Mather. 

Dedham : Rev. John Allin. 

Charlestown : Rev. Zech. Symmes, Rev. Thomas Shepard, and Richard 
Russell. 

Sudbury : Rev. Edward Browne. 

Ipswich : Rev. Thomas Cobbett, Rev. William Hubbard. 

Watertown : Rev. John Sherman. 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. ^3 

representatives," and the " grievances of both sides " were 
" fully heard." 81 It continued at least ten days in session, 
and probably somewhat longer, its "Sentence" being dated 
October 7th. 

The document which expresses the verdict of the Council 
on the melancholy business, was apparently drawn up by 
the "matchless" Jonathan Mitchell of- Cambridge. 82 Too 
long by far to quote, its conclusions may be summarized. 
The Council mildly censured Mr. Stone's action in the "non- 
administration of ye Lord's Supper" as "irregular, because 
he was therein defective unto the execution of his office & 
fulfilling of His Ministry." It judged "that His Desire of a 
Dismission so speedily after the pacification, before the 
joynts of that dis-united Body so lately set were considera- 
bly settled, was unseasonable." It pronounced " his propo- 
sals of Engagements unto the Church at such a Time .... 
both unseasonable and inexpedient." It found too much 
evidence of Mr. Stone's " Rigid Handling of divers Breth- 
ren," particularly specifying the " Honoured M 1 ' Webster," 
and " Brother Bacon." It absolved Mr. Stone from the 
charge of "nullifying the instrument of pacification," but 
did find him chargeable with "some Commissions which in 
their owne nature tended to the unsettlement of y e pacifica- 
tion." It summed up its judgment concerning the Church 
thus: "So far as the premises impute blame to M r Stone, 
the brethren of the church that have adhered to him, acted 
with him, and defended him therein, cannot be excused from 
being blameworthy also." 

Turning to " the Grievances presented by M r Stone & the 
Brethren of the Church," the Council find the Withdraw- 



* l Hull's Diary, p. 188. 

82 See Hist. Coll., pp. 11 2-1 25, for full text of the paper. 



^4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN - HARTFORD. [1653-1659. 

ers chargeable with "breaking the pacification," and with 
"rending from the Church of Christ at Hartford in a schis- 
maticall way : and their sin therein is exceeding scandalous." 
But it palliates their fault " because they were led thereunto 
by a mistake concerning the Act of the Reverend Councell 
held at Hartford, June '56, to have been in force enabling 
them thereunto." It declares the With drawers " are still 
members of the Church at Hartford ; " to be culpable in pub- 
lishing papers of an " Offensive or Accusatory " character 
against " the Church and their Teacher ; " and as being 
"irregular" — such of them as had done so — in "joyning to 
another Church," which " irregular " act is a " nullity." 

The Council expresses the hope that mutual " satisfaction " 
be given, and that there " be a return of the Dissenters into 
Communion with the Church of Hartford as formerly." 
But if any still desired to remove, the Council's "Advice 
and Determination is that the Church forthwith .... give 
them their Dismission, & that such as have joyned themselves 
to another church doe solemnly renew their covenant." 
The Council ends with a pathetic exhortation to love and 
unity, and not to " turne againe to folly." 

It appears that the representatives of both parties present 
at Boston submitted with good grace to the judgment ; a 
disposition " which was publicly manifested before they 
departed home." 83 Most of those known as Withdrawers, 
led by Wm. Goodwin and John Webster, speedily removed to 
Hadley, and the great quarrel in the Hartford Church was 
over. 

The quarrel began, probably, so far as anything visible was 
a beginning, in a question of personal preference for a pulpit 
candidate ; it found expression in a dispute touching the offi- 



">' HulPs Diary, ut supra, p. ii 



1653-1659-] QUARREL IN STONE'S DAY. jy$ 

cial prerogative of the two chief officers of the Church ; it 
broadened out as it went into a controversy concerning the 
claims of the brotherhood and the rights of a minority, and 
of the proper methods of ecclesiastical redress when those 
rights were infringed ; it brought up many interesting ques- 
tions of Congregational order, but the personal element was 
all along the baffiing and potential quantity. 

Mr. Goodwin was a very able and reverend man. But we 
remember that before the Church left Massachusetts he had 
been reproved in open Court for his " unreverend speech." 

Mr. Stone, too, was an exceedingly reverend and able man. 
But he obviously took very high views of the prerogatives of 
his office. His conception of ministerial authority belonged 
more to the period in which he had been educated in Eng- 
land, than to the new era into which he had come in New 
England. His own graphic expression, "A speaking aristoc- 
racy in the face of a silent democracy," is the felicitous 
phrase which sets forth at once the view he took of church 
government, and the source of all his woes. On the whole, 
respecting the controversy itself which turmoiled the Church 
so long, the impartial verdict of history must be, that spite 
of many irregularities and doubtless a good deal of ill- temper 
on both sides, the general weight of right and justice was 
with the defeated and emigrating minority. 

Mr. Stone survived this passage* in his experience about 
four years. They were years of seeming harmony in the 
Church and comfort to himself. Within about a twelvemonth 
after the adjustment of the long Church quarrel, an associate 
Pastor was settled in connection with Mr. Stone — the Rev. 
John Whiting, of whom there will be occasion hereafter 
more fully to speak. Apparently the main part of the min- 
isterial work was devolved, in Mr. Stone's increasing age and 



176 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1659-1663. 

feebleness, upon his younger colleague ; for on January 26, 
1663, the town, by its vote, granted "Mr. Stone sixty pounds 
and Mr. Whiting eighty pounds for the year past and rest to 
come." Mr. Stone did not survive this year, but died on the 
20th of July, 1663, at the same age as his predecessor, 61 
years. 

One matter, however, belonging to this epoch of Stone's 
and Whiting's joint ministry, needs here to be spoken of 
before the first Teacher of this Church passes finally out of 
sight. It is the most distinct instance of the contact with 
the Hartford Church 84 of that great horror of the period to 
which it belongs alike in Old England and in New — the 
delusion of Witchcraft. 

The story, which belongs to the winter of 1662-3, will be 
told, chiefly, in the language of Rev. John Whiting, one of 
the actors in the affair, as written by him, twenty years after 
the events narrated, in a letter to Rev. Increase Mather, of 
Boston : 65 

"The subject was Anne Cole (the daughter of John Cole 
a godly man among us, then next neighbor to the man and 
woman 86 that afterward suffered for witchcraft) who had for 
sometime been afflicted and in some feares about her spirit- 



84 Fourteen years before, in December 1648, Mary Johnson, having been tried 
at Hartford, had been found "guilty of familliarity with the Deuill," chiefly 
upon her " owne confession," and been executed. During " her imprisonment 
the famous Mr. Stone was at great pains to promote her conversion from the 
Devil to God ; " but there is no probability that the matter came any nearer the 
Church than this service of its minister. Compare Col. /Records, i, pp. 171 and 
143 ; and see, as to the story itself, Magnalia, ii, 396. 

85 Whiting's letter is dated at Hartford, December 4, 1682, and was written to 
forward an enterprise of Mather's, in the Recording of Illustrious Providences^ 
which had been endorsed by a " generall meeting of the ministers " of the Bay 
Colony, May 12, 1681. Mather told the story in his Remarkable Providences. 
It is also, in abridged form, in the Magnalia, ii, pp. 389-390. Whiting's letter 
is in Mass. Hist. Soc. Col., vol. xxxvii. 

86 Nathaniel and Rebecca Greensmith, concerning whose trial and affairs see 
a later note. 



1659-1663.] WITCHCRAFT IN HARTFORD. 1 yy 

uall estate The matter is, That Anno, 1662, This 

Anne Cole (living in her ffather's family) was taken with 
strange fitts, wherein she (or rather the Devill, as 'tis judged, 
making use of her lips) held a discourse for a considerable 
time. The general purport of it was to this purport, that a 
company of familiars of the evil one (who were named in the 
discourse that passed from her) were contriving to carry on 
their mischievous designes against some, and especially 
against her, mentioning sundry wayes they would take to 
that end, As that they would afflict her body, spoile her 
name, hinder her marriage, &c, wherein the generall answer 
made among them was, She runs to her Rock. This method 
having continued for some howers, The conclusion was, Let 
us confound her Language, she may tell no more tales. 
And then after some time of unintelligible muttering, the 
discourse passed into a Dutch tone (a family of Dutch then 
living in the town). 87 .... Judicious M r Stone (who is now 
with God) being by when the latter discourse passed, 
declared it in his thoughts impossible that one not familiarly 
acquainted with the Dutch (which Anne Cole had not at all 
been) should so exactly imitate the Dutch tone in the pro- 
nunciation of English." 

The matter was noised about, and the ministers, and per- 
haps some others, came to see the bewitched girl : 

"Sundry times such kind of discourse was uttered by her, 
which was very aweful and amazing to the hearers: M r 
Sam 11 Hooker was present the first time, and M r Joseph 
Haines, who wrote what was said, so did the Relator also, 



87 The Dutch family bore the name of Varleth. Caspar Varleth, the head of 
the house, died in 1663. A daughter of his, just about this time, was accused 
of witchcraft. A letter signed P. Stuyvesant, dated "Amsterdam in N. Nether- 
lant, the 13 of X br : 1662," is extant, addressed to the " Honourable debuty 
Governour, & Court of Magistracy att Hardfort," wherein the writer pleads for 
his distressed sister-in-law, "Judith Varleth, jmprisoned as we are jmformed, 
vppon pretend accusation of wicherye." Copy by C. J. Hoadly from Col. 
Boundaries, ii, doc. 1. 
23 



178 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1659-1663. 

when he came to the house, sometime after the discourse 
began." 88 

The hysteric young woman also disturbed the public 
meetings which she attended, especially a prayer meeting 
appointed particularly in her behalf, by her outcries and 
"violent bodily motions;" in which public disturbances she 
was seconded by " two other women, who had also strange 
fitts." The conclusion of beholders was that Anne Cole was 
bewitched. Unhappily, however, in her incoherent babble- 
ment, she had mentioned the names of sundry persons as 
concerned in working her harm, and among them, of her next 
door neighbors, the Greensmiths. 

"The consequence was, That one of the persons presented 
as actiue in the forementioned discourse (A lewd, ignorant, 
considerably aged woman) being a prisoner upon suspition 
of witchcraft, the Court sent for M r Haines and myselfe to 
read what we had written ; which when M r Haines had 
done (the prisoner being present) she forthwith and freely 
confessed those things to be true, that she (and other per- 
sons named in the discourse) had familiarity with the Devill. 
Being asked whether she had made an express covenant with 
him she answered she had not, onely as she promised to go 
with him when he called (which she had accordingly done 
sundry times). But that the Devill told her that at Christ- 
mass they would have a merry meeting, and then the cove- 
nant should be drawn and subscribed : Thereupon the 
forementioned M r Stone (being then in court) with much 
weight and earnestness laid forth the exceeding heinousness 
and hazard of that dreadful sin." 

The poor, half-crazed, old creature was led on to confess 



88 Rev. Samuel Hooker, son of the Pastor of the First Church, had, about 
eighteen months before, been ordained pastor at Farmington. He was a class- 
mate of Rev. John Whiting, the " Relator " in this affair. Mr. Joseph Haynes 
was at this time, probably, studying theology at his home at Hartford with Mr. 
Stone, and perhaps already had begun to preach at Wethersfield, where he cer- 
tainly was a few months later. He was installed in Hartford in 1664. 



1659-1663.] WITCHCRAFT IN HARTFORD. i7 q 

various revolting impossibilities, with the narration of which 
it is not necessary to soil these pages ; but the result of the 
trial was, 89 that 

"The concurrent evidence brought the woman and her 
husband to their death as the Devill's familiars, and most of 
the other persons mentioned in the discourse made their 
escape into another part of the country." 

It is rather poor consolation, after the tragical issue of 
Anne Cole's hysterical chatterings, to be told by Mr. Whit- 
ing that 

" After this execution of some 90 and escape of others, the 
good woman had abatement of her sorrows, .... is joined 
to the church, and therein been a humble walker for many 
yeares." 91 

The melancholly controversy, which occupies so large a 
chapter in Mr. Stone's ministry, and for which it cannot be 
denied that he was largely responsible, is liable to hide from 
us the many admirable qualities of a man who was certainly, 



89 The trial was at Hartford, December 30, 1662. The " InditemenV charged 
that Nathaniel Greensmith and his wife Rebecca had " entertained familiarity 
with Satan ;" and by his help had " acted things in a preternaturall way byond 
humaine abilities in a naturall course." The jury found both guilty; and the 
poor old wife "confesseth in open Court that she is guilty of y e charge laid 
agaynst her." The " Magestrates " on this trial were " M r Allyn, Mod r , M r 
Willys, M r Treat, M r Woolcot, Dan 11 Clark, et Sec: M r Jo: Allyn." The 
Jury were " Edw : Griswold, Walter Filer, Ensigne Olmstead, Sam 11 Boreman, 
Goodwin Winterton, John Cowles, Sam 11 Marshall, Sam 11 Hale, Nathan 11 
Willet, John Hart, John Wadsworth, Robert Webster." The culprits were 
executed January 25, 1662-3, and the inventory of Greensmith's estate, amount- 
ing to ;£i8i, i8j., 5^., is on record in Hartford probate office. 

90 It seems probable that Mary Barnes, of Farmington, was executed on the 
same occasion as the Greensmiths. She was indicted January 6, 1662-3, a week 
after the Greensmith trial, before the same magistrates and nearly the same jury 
and found guilty of witchcraft. 

91 Anne Cole went, in the division of the Hartford Church, with Mr. Whiting 
and the party which formed the Second Church. She subsequently married 
Andrew Benton and had several children. Her Father, John Cole, lived, in 
1669, on the South Side, having been made a Freeman of the Colony in 1657 j 
rented, in 1661, "y e estate y* formerly belonged to Edward Hopkins Esq 1 "; " 
and was a man of some public trust. Col. Rec, i, 297, 370; ii, 157, 518. 



l8o THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1659-1663. 

spite of all imperfections, a man of marked abilities and of 
sincere godliness. 

Mr. Stone was a good talker. He was fond of anecdote 
and had capacity for pat and epigrammatic expression. 

He was, indeed, in the few extended writings which have 
been preserved to us — as a catechism 92 still extant ; and 
a manuscript body of divinity, of which several copies 
remain ; 93 and one tract on church government, published 
in London in 1652 94 — a very tedious writer, by reason of the 
scholastic method of his thoughts and composition. But all 
accounts agree as to his conversational powers, 95 and his 
influence over men. And it can well be seen how it may 
have been so. The title of that church-government tract, 
just referred to, " A Congregational Church a Catholike 
Visible Church," and that other phrase expressive of his 
high-church notions of Congregationalism — quoted a little 
earlier in this chapter — are quite unforgetable expressions ; 
sharp as were ever coined by a master of sentences. 

That Mr. Stone must have been a man of popular quali- 
ties, is witnessed to, not only by the feeling toward him of 
the soldiers of the Pequot expedition, in which he bore a 
part, and for which the Colony granted him a generous 
bestowment of land ; 96 but the very name of the Town 
itself is a standing memorial of him ; the place of Mr. 
Stone's birth, being chosen, rather than that of any other 



92 Published in 1684. 

93 One in Watkinson Library, Hartford. This body of divinity is said by 
Mather to have been often transcribed by students for the ministry, and to have 
"made some of our most considerable divines" Mogilalia, i, p. 395. 

94 " A Congregational Church is a Catholike Visible Church." London, 
MDCLII. 

95 Magnalia, i, p. 394. 

96 Col. Records, i, p. 413. 



1659-1663.] STONE'S DECLINE AND DEATH. x 8l 

of the founders, as the name of the new home in the wilder- 
ness. 

Of the earnestness of his religious feeling and his zeal for 
his Church's spiritual welfare, Cotton Mather speaks enthu- 
siastically in his short life of this " Doctor Irrefragabilis ; " 
but the cooler page of dry historic chronicle has preserved 
for us a single fact, even more suggestive than the paragraphs 
of the eulogist. Ten years after Mr. Stone was in his grave, 
Rev. Jas. Fitch of Norwich wrote to the Council of Con- 
necticut, in reference to an appointed Fast : " We intend, 
God willing, to take that very daye, solemnly to renew our 
covenant in church-state, according to the example in Ezra's 
time & as was sometimes practiced in Hartford congre- 
gation by Mr. Stone, not long after Mr. Hooker's death." 97 

While of the brotherly and social quality of Mr. Stone's 

nature, we have a pleasant hint in his saying, " Heaven is 

the more desirable, for such company as Hooker and Shepard 

and Hains, who are got there before me" He was buried 

beside his more distinguished colleague, the slab above him 

testifying : 

" New England's glory & her radient Crowne, 
"Was he who now in softest bed of downe 
Till gloriovs Resvrection morn appeare, 
Doth safely, sweetly sleepe in Iesvs here. 
In Natvre's solid art, and reasoning well, 
'Tis knowne beyond compare he did excell. 
Errors corrvpt by sinnewovs dispvte 
He did oppvgne, and clearly did confvte. 
Above all things he Christ his Lord preferd, 
Hartford thy richest Jewel's here interd." 9S 



y " Col. Records, ii, p. 417, note. 1 

98 Several metrical " composures " in reference to Mr. Stone, before and after 

his death, are preserved, two of which, together with Mr. Stone's Will, and 

Inventory of estate will be found in Appendix V. 



CHAPTER VIII 



WHITING AND HAYNES AND THE DIVISION OF THE 

CHURCH. 

It has been seen J that Rev. John Whiting was ordained 
colleague with Mr. Stone in the charge of the Hartford 
Church sometime, probably, in 1660. 2 

The new minister thus set in office was a son of William 
Whiting, one of the early settlers of the town, a Magistrate, 
and from 1641 till his death, the Treasurer of the Colony. 3 
Already the churches of New England were beginning to 
turn to their own children as their ministers ; and already 
the college at Cambridge was bearing fruit. 

John Whiting was probably born in 1635, an ^ was educa- 
ted at Harvard, graduating in 1653, having three other Hart- 
ford boys — Samuel Willis, Samuel Hooker, and John Stone 
— for his classmates. 4 He continued his connection with 



l Ante, p. 175. 

2 A vote of the Town, of February n, 1661, appropriated " 90 pounds to Mr. 
Whiting for this year's labour, and 10 pounds for the transporting of himself, 
family, and goods from the Bay to Hartford." 

3 He died in July, 1647, of the same epidemical sickness which carried off Mr. 
Hooker. 

4 Samuel Willis was son of George Willis, Magistrate and Governor of this 
Colony. He was born in England in 1632, and died in 1709. He lived in Hart- 
ford, a man of trust and public honor. 

Samuel Hooker was son of Rev. Thomas Hooker ; born 1635 ; became pas- 
tor at Farmington 1661, dying in 1697. 

John Stone was doubtless son of Rev. Samuel Stone, by his first wife, who 
died in 1640. He went to England and died there. 

Besides these three townsmen of Whiting, Thomas Shepard of Cambridge, 



1 660-1679.] WHITING AND HAYNES. ^3 

the college apparently a year after taking his Bachelor 
degree. He lived some time at Cambridge where, with his 
wife Sybil, daughter of Deacon Edward Collins of that place, 
he united with the Cambridge church, and had children bap- 
tized. 5 

In the years 1657-1659 he maintained some kind of min- 
isterial relationship to the church of Salem, assisting Rev. 
Edward Norris, who had become aged and infirm. The peo- 
ple of Salem would gladly have retained him as pastor, and 
made overtures to him for that purpose ; but without perma- 
nent results. 6 His coming to Hartford as Mr. Stone's asso- 
ciate appears to have been attended with public interest, as 
the Town on his coming voted to build a gallery in the meet- 
ing-house, on the east side of the Church, to " cost twenty- 
two or three pounds." 

During Mr. Stone's survival Mr. Whiting, as has been 
said, seems to have done the larger share of the work ; but 
at Mr. Stone's death the people were still too full of the 
primitive idea of a dual ministry to think of devolving the 
labor on Mr. Whiting alone. 

Consequently almost immediately upon the decease of the 
first Teacher, Rev. Joseph Haynes was invited to an asso- 
ciate ministry with Rev. John Whiting. Mr. Haynes, like 
his associate, was a Hartford man. He was son of Governor 
John Haynes by his second wife, Mabel Harlakenden. He 
was born about 1641, and graduated at Harvard College in 
the class of 1658. 7 He preached awhile in 1663 and 1664 in 



born 1635, son of Rev. Thomas Shepard of the same place, was of the same 
class. He was afterward minister of the church in Charlestown, and died in 
1677. See Sibley's Harvard Graduates, Vol. I, Class of 1653. 

5 Ibid, p. 344. 

6 Essex Institute Hist. Coll , ix, pp. 203-204, 210, 217, etc. 

7 Haynes had among his classmates, Samuel Talcott of Hartford ; born about 
1635, son of John Talcott, an original settler; Samuel Shepard, born 1641, 



j84 th E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

Wethersfield, and some time in the latter year became a min- 
ister of the Hartford Church. At first Mr. Whiting received 
p£8o, and Mr. Haynes £70, for recompense ; but on January 
28, 1666, the town voted the two ministers the same sum of 
£jo each, in recognition of their services ; 8 a vote which was 
repeated year by year during their joint ministry. 

Here then were two Hartford young men — Whiting at 
his settlement was twenty-five, and Haynes at his settlement 
four years later, was twenty-three — of common associations 
and mutual fellowships in town and college, united in the pas- 
toral care of a Church which was the mother of them both. 
What fairer prospect could appear for a happy and useful 
associate ministry ? Nevertheless two years after the settle- 
ment of the younger man we find the two Pastors in open 
conflict, the Church divided into parties, and an ecclesiastical 
warfare in lively progress, which in less than four years more 
resulted in the permanent rupture of the body known as the 
Church of Hartford into two separate ecclesiastical organiza- 
tions. 

A vivid picture of one scene of the drama in June 1666, 
just when the sharper phase of the struggle was beginning, 
remains to us from the pen of John Davenport of New 
Haven. 9 The curtain lifts on the spectacle of " young M r 
Heynes," sending " 3 of his partie to tell M r Whiting, that 
the nexte Lecture-day he would preach about his way of bap- 



son of Rev. Thomas Shepard by his second wife, Joanna, daughter of Rev. 
Thomas Hooker ; and Joseph Eliot, born 1638, son of Rev. John Eliot, the 
Apostle to the Indians. Talcott settled at Wethersfield, where he was a use- 
ful and honored citizen and public officer ; Shepard became minister at Row- 
ley, and died at the age of 26; Eliot became minister at Guilford, where he died 
at the age of 55. 

s Town Records. It is pleasant to note, at the same date, that the town had 
not forgotten Mrs. Stone, but voted her ,£20, having in 1664 voted her £2$. 

9 Mass. Hist Coll., ^d Series, x, 59-62. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. ^5 

tizing, and would begin the practicing of it on that day." 
Lecture-day came. Mr. Haynes preached. " Water was 
prepared for baptism " which, Mr. Davenport says, " was 
never administred in a weeke day in that Church, before." 
But up stood the senior Pastor, Mr. Whiting, and "as his 
place and duty required, testifyed against it, and refused to 
consent." A wordy contest began. Rev. John Warham of 
Windsor, now an old man, was present, probably by request 
of the senior Pastor, Mr. Whiting. Presuming on the "com- 
mon concernment to all the churches" of the matter in 
debate, he attempted to speak, but was " rudely hindered " by 
the exclamation " What hath M r Warham to do to speake in 
our Church matters ? " The meeting apparently broke 
up in a tumult, but was followed by a challenge from the 
younger to the older Pastor for a public "dispute about it 
with M r Whiting the next Lecture day ; " an ecclesiastical 
contest which probably came off according to programme — 
as Mr. Davenport says it was "agreed upon" — but of which 
no account remains to us ; and of the utility and even 
decency of which, as between two Pastors of the same flock, 
it may be permitted to entertain doubts. 

This contest between Mr. Whiting and Mr. Haynes about 
Baptism was only an incident in a general conflict of opinion 
and behavior in the New England churches at large at the 
period in question. To understand it, and to understand the 
movement of which it was only a pictorial incident, it will 
be necessary to take a survey of some antecedent facts of 
New England church history. 

The original theory upon which the churches were gath- 
ered upon this side of the Atlantic, was the personal regen- 
erate character of all the membership. " Visible saints only 

are fit Matter appointed by God to make up a visible Church 

24 



l86 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [i 660-1679. 

of Christ," 10 was the language of Mr. Hooker, which may- 
be said to express the generally accepted view of the prim- 
itive New England churches. 11 The founders of these 
churches had come from lands where a different theory of 
membership prevailed. All the baptized inhabitants of an 
English, German, or Genevan parish, were accounted mem- 
bers of the there existing Church, even if manifestly destitute 
of Christian character. This was a condition of things 
against which the New England fathers desired to guard. 
They attempted to do it by vigorously applying, at the door- 
way of entrance to the churches they established, the tests 
of visible saintship, found in regenerate character. These 
tests were, to a considerable extent, the outgrowth of a pecu- 
liar and high-strained type of theology, and demanded a 
special and definite religious "experience." 

The attempt was well intended, and was what the past 
acquaintance with the parish-system, on the part of the New 
England founders, almost shut them up to. But administered 
as the endeavor was, in the application of those rigorous 
religious standards of determination by which alone entrance 
to the Church was allowed to adult applicants, and by which 
approach was granted to children born in the Church to the 
full privileges of church membership, it was attended by two 
inevitable consequences. It left a very considerable number 
of adult people, of good moral and even religious character, 
outside of any church-fellowship at all ; deprived of the priv- 
ileges of the sacraments, and having no voice in the selection 



10 Survey, p. 14. 

11 Some ministers, as the pastor and teacher at Newbury, and at his first com- 
ing, Rev. Mr. Warham of Windsor, seem to have held a conception of the 
Church more kindred to the English "parish-way." See Dr. Fuller's letter to 
Gov. Bradford, June 28, 1630: "Mr. Warham holds that the visible church 
may consist of a mixed people, godly and openly ungodly." Young's Chroni- 
cles, Mass., p. 347, note. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 187 

of ministers whom they were nevertheless legally bound to 
support. 12 And it left a growing body of youth, who, having 
been baptized in infancy and so accounted in a manner mem- 
bers of the Church, were not consciously regenerate, and 
therefore not welcomed to the Lord's table, nor supposed 
capable of presenting their children in turn for baptism. 

The dangers which grew out of this condition of affairs 
were discerned by some quite early. 13 

Indeed as early as 1646, the perception of the evil which 
this state of things involved, was the basis of a formal peti- 
tion to the General Court of Massachusetts for redress ; the 
petitioners pleading that they "were denied the liberty of 
subjects both in church and commonwealth ; themselves 
and their children debarred from the seals of the covenant, 
except they would submit to such a way of entrance and 
church covenant as their consciences would not admit." 14 

The difficulty was thus a two-fold one, having reference to 
adult people never "confederated" in churches of the New 
England way; and to the children of "confederating parents" 
who came to years of discretion and maturity without having 
attained the necessary and gracious experience to become 
full participants of church privileges. 

Quite a number of the ministers of early New England 



12 The New England device of a Parish-system, co-ordinate with the Church 
and having an associate voice with the Church in the choice of a minister, is 
an attempt partially to meet one portion of this difficulty. 

13 Thomas Lechford's exaggerated prophecy, uttered about 1640 {Plaine Deal- 
ing, Preface, p. 7) of the result to be looked for in " twenty years," when the 
unbaptized would "rise up against the Church and break forth into many griev- 
ous distempers among themselves," had in it some gleam of truthful foresight. 

14 This petition, which much accords with that of William Pitkin and others 
to the General Court of Connecticut eighteen years later, was signed by several 
very respectable inhabitants of the Colony; but action was postponed, "the 
Court being then near an end, and the matter being very weighty." Winthrop's 
Journal, ii, 319-321. 



iSS THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

recognized the danger, and were inclined to take such a view 
of the Church, and of the relationship of the baptized to the 
Church, as would meet that part, at least, of the difficulty in 
the case which was experienced by parents who, having been 
themselves baptized but not admitted to the Lord's Supper, 
desired baptism for their children. So early as Dec. 16, 
1634, Rev. John Cotton wrote to the church of Dorchester : 

" The case of conscience which you propounded to our Con- 
sideration [to wit whether a Grand Father being a member 
of a Christian church might claim Baptism to his Grandchild 
whose next parents be not recieved into church-covenant] 
has been deliberately treated of in our church Assembled 
together publickly in the name of Christ. And upon due 
and serious discourse about the point it seemed good to us all 
with one accord, and agreeable as we believe to the Word of 
the Lord, that the Grand Father may lawfully claim that 
privilege to his Grand Child in such a case." 15 

In 1645 Richard Mather of Dorchester wrote : 

" It is not the Parents' fitness for the Lord's Supper that 
is the ground of baptizing their Children : but the Parents 
and so their Children being in the Covenant, this is that 
which is the main ground thereof : and so long as this doth 
continue not dissolved by any Church censure against them, 
nor by any scandalous sin of theirs, so long the Children 
may be baptized." 16 

In 1648 Rev. Ralph Partridge of the Plymouth Colony, 
presented a draft of a Platform of Discipline to the Cam- 
bridge Synod, then in session, in which he lays down this 
doctrine : 

" The persons unto whom the Sacrament of Baptisme is 



15 Increase Mather's First Principles of New England, p. 2. Mr. Hooker 
never acceded to this view of his early associate. He argues at great length 
against the possibility of extending the privilege of baptism to any but the 
immediate offspring of the parents in Covenant. See Survey, part iii, pp. 9-27. 

16 First Principles, p. 11. 



1660-1679-] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. i%g 

dispensed (and as we concieve ought to be) are such as being 
of years and converted from their Sins to the Faith of Jesus 
Christ do joyn in Communion and Fellowship with a particu- 
lar visible Church, as also the children of such Parent or 
Parents as having laid hold of the Covenant of grace (in the 
judgement of Charity) are in a Visible Covenant with his 
Church, and all their seed after them that cast not off the 
Covenant of God by some Scandalous and obstinate going on 
in sin." 17 

In 1649 Thomas Shepherd of Cambridge, is represented 
by Mather thus : 

" He does assert and prove that Children are members of 
the Visible Church, and that their membership continues 
when they are Adult, and that the Children of Believers are 
to be accounted of the Church until they positively reject the 
Gospel, and that the membership of children hath no ten- 
dency in it to pollute the Church, any more now than under 
the Old Testament, and that Children are under Church 
discipline, and that some persons Adult may be admitted to 
Baptisme and yet not to the Lord's Supper." 18 

In 1650 Mr. Stone of the Hartford Church wrote : 

" I concieve (saith Mr. Stone) that Children of Church 
Members have right to Church membership by virtue of 

their Father s Covenant If they be presented to a 

Church and Claim their Interest they cannot be denyed. . . . 
I spake with Mr Warham and we question not the right of 
Children, but we concieve it would be Comfortable to 
have some Concurrence, which is that we have waited for a 
Long Time." 19 



17 Ibid, p. 23. 

18 Ibid, p. 22. 

19 Ibid, p. 9. Mr. Warham, to whom Mr. Stone refers, occupied at different 
times different positions on this subject. He was a member of the Assembly 
of 1657, which endorsed this theory of baptism, and he began the practice of it 
"January 31, i6s7[8], and went on in the practice of it until March 19, i664[5]; 
on which day he declared to the church that he had met with such arguments 
against the practice .... that he must forbear until he had weighed arguments 



ICj0 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

In 165 1 Rev. Mr. Prudden of Milford wrote : 
" Touching the desire of such members Children as desire 
to have their Children baptized, it is a thing I do not yet 
hear practiced, but for my own part I am inclined to think it 
cannot justly be denyed, because their next Parents however 
not admitted to the Lord's Supper stand as compleat mem- 
bers of the Church, within the Covenant." 20 

So in 1652 Rev. Henry Smith of Wethersfield wrote : 
" Our thoughts here are that the promise made to the Seed 
of Confederates, Gen. 17, takes in all Children of Confeder- 
ating Parents, whether baptized here or elsewhere, whether 
younger or Elder, if they do either expressly or otherwayes 
may be Concieved in the Judgement of Charity to Consent 
thereto." 21 

In the same year Rev. N. Rogers of Ipswich wrote : 
"To the question concerning the Children of Church 
Members, I have nothing to oppose, and I wonder why any 
should deny them to be members. .... We are this week 
to meet in the Church about it, and I know nothing but we 
must speedily fall to practice." 22 

This undoubtedly was done soon after, for in 1655 the Ips- 
wich Church put on record the following vote : "We judge 
that the children of such adult persons " [those baptized in 
infancy] " that were of understanding and not scandalous, and 
shall take the Covenant, that their children shall be bap- 
tized." 23 The Dorchester Church took similar action the same 
year. 24 Salem had come to similar conclusions still earlier. 25 



and advised with those that were able to give [advice]." Windsor Ch. Records, 
Stiles' History, p. 172. The Church resumed the practice by vote, June 21, 
1668, under Mr. Chauncy. Meantime, in June, 1666, Mr. Warham seems to 
have been opposed to the practice, and is spoken of by Davenport, in the 
letter before referred to, as "sound" in the matter. 

20 Ibid, p. 26. 

21 Ibid, p. 21. 

22 Ibid, 23-24. 

23 Contributions to Hist. Essex Co., p. 271. 

24 Felt, ii, 134. 

26 White's N. E. Congregationalism, p. 60. 



1660-1679- ] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. l( ^i 

Connecticut, therefore, cannot be charged with originating 
the new departure in the enlargement of the scope of Bap- 
tism and in favoring of the " parish-way," although the earli- 
est motion for an authoritative utterance upon the subject 
came from her. The matter was in the air. And in the 
turmoiled state of the Hartford Church, owing to an ecclesi- 
astical quarrel between its officers, the question was all the 
more liable to expression. As Trumbull says, " Numbers of 
them took this opportunity to introduce into the Assembly a 
list of grievances, on account of their being denied their just 
rights and privileges by the ministers and churches." 26 The 
two questions — the rights of " non-confederating " parish- 
ioners in the choice of a minister, and the rights of children 
of baptized parents not admitted to full communion, were the 
main points in debate. 

It has sometimes been said that political disabilities under- 
lay this agitation. No evidence exists of it. There were no 
new political privileges to be gained by the enlargement of 
baptism or half-way entrance into the church-state. Not 
even in Massachusetts or New Haven did such entrance 
bring with it any additional secular privilege. Least of all 
is such a suggestion even plausible as to Connecticut, where 
no limitation of privilege to church-members had ever been 
attempted. The motive was a religious one, whether wise or 
unwise. 

Connecticut, May 15, 1656, appointed a committee to con- 
fer with the elders of the Colony about " those things y x are 
p r sented to this Courte as grevances to severall persons 
amongst vs," 27 with a view to presenting the same to the 
General Courts of the United Colonies. Upon the represen- 



26 History, i, 298. 



ig 2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

tations thus made by Connecticut, which took the form, in 
part, of a series of questions for discussion, the General 
Court of Massachusetts passed an order, October 21st, 28 
responding to Connecticut's proposal for a deliberative 
Assembly, 23 and selected thirteen of the teaching elders of 
the Colony 30 to meet with the elders of the other Colonies 
on the following June for the purposes designated. Provis- 
ion was made for the entertainment of the Assembly, and 
letters of invitation and copies of Connecticut's letter and 
questions sent. Plymouth apparently gave no answer. New 
Haven wrote a letter declining to attend, and saying : 

" We hear that the petition's, or others closing with them, 
are very confident that they shall obteyn great alterations, 
both in civill governm 1 , and in church-discipline, and that 
some of them have procured or hyred one as their agent to 
maintayne in writing (as is conceived) that parishes in Eng- 
land, consenting to and continewing their meetings to worship 
God are true Churches, and such persons coming over hither 
(w^out holding forth any worke of faith, etc.), have right to 
all church privileges ; And probably they expect their depu- 
tie should employ himself and improve his interests, to spread 
and press such paradoxes in the Massachusetss, yea at the 
synod or meeting." 

New Haven further urged the departure to England of 
Hooke and Whitfield, and the death of Prudden, as an addi- 
tional reason for declining to send delegates ; but forwarded 



28 Mass. Col. Rec, iii, 419. 

29 The gathering proposed was of ministers only ; not of churches by their 
ministers and messengers. And herein doubtless, the stricter Congregational- 
ists found a source of offence, as savoring of a greater authority in the min- 
istry than their principles allowed. They complained of all such concessions 
as "Presbyterian." 

30 The Elders designated by Massachusetts were Revs. Messrs. Norton, R. 
Mather, Allin, and Thatcher of Suffolk ; Buckley, Chauncey, Symmes, Sherman, 
and Mitchell of Middlesex ; and Norris, E. Rogers, Whiting, and Cobbett of 
Essex. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. ig$ 

a series of answers to the questions proposed by Connecti- 
cut, drawn up by the hand of John Davenport. The General 
Court of Connecticut, on February 26, 1657, appointed Mr. 
Warham of Windsor, Mr. Stone of Hartford, Mr. Blinman 
of New London, and Mr. Russell of Wethersfield, the dele- 
gates for this Colony. 

The Assembly of Elders met at Boston, June 4, 1657, and 
sat a fortnight in deliberation. It gave formal answers to 
twenty-one proposed questions. The answer to the 10th 
question is chiefly important, viz. : 

" It is the duty of children who confederate in their parents 
when grown up to years of discretion, though not yet fit for 
the Lord's supper t to own the Covenant they made with their 
Parents by entering thereinto in their own persons ; and it is 
the duty of the church to call upon them for the perform- 
ance thereof ; and if being called upon they shall refuse the 
performances of this great duty, or otherwise continue scan- 
dalous, they are liable to be censured for the same by the 
church. And in case they understand the Grounds of Relig- 
ion and are not scandalous, and solemnly own to the Cove- 
nant in their own persons, wherein they give up both them- 
selves and their children unto the Lord, and desire baptism 
for them, we (with due reverence to any godly learned that 
may dissent) see not sufficient cause to deny baptism unto 
their children." 31 

This answer, as Dr. Trumbull intimates, 32 virtually carried 
with it the right of all baptized persons to vote in the choice 
of a minister whether in full fellowship or not, and was so 
far, a practical recognition of the parish-way of Old Eng- 
land as against the church-way of New England's prevalent 
usage. 

On the 1 2th of August following, "A true coppy of the 

31 Hubbard, pp. 566-567 

32 History, i, p. 304. 

25 



X g4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

Counsells answere to seuerall questions " was presented to 
the " Court, signed by Reuerend Mr. Sam : Stone, in the 
name of the rest of the Counsell." Whereupon the Court 
ordered : 

"That coppies should goe forth to the seu r ail Churches in 
this Collony as speedily, & if any exceptions bee against any 
thing therein, by any Church that shall haue the considera- 
tion thereof, the Court desires they would acquaint the next 
Gen : Court in Hartford, in Octo r : that so suitable care may 
bee had for their solution & satisfaction." 33 

With all this preparation of the way, however, and this 
ecclesiastical endorsement, the churches were slow to accept 
the change. " Yea it met with such opposition as could not 
be encountered with anything less than a Synod of Elders 
and Messengers, from all the churches in the Massachusetts 
colony." 34 This Synod, in which the two western Colonies 
were not represented, but which was composed of "above 
seventy" members, met in Boston, March 11-21, 1662 ; and, 
by a vote of more than seven to one, confirmed the principle 
set forth in the 10th answer of the ministerial assembly of 
1657 — the principle known as the "Half-way-Covenant." 
The language of the Synod on this point is as follows : 

" Church-members who were admitted in minority, under- 
standing the doctrine of faith, and publickly professing their 
assent thereto : not scandalous in life, and solemnly owning 
the covenant before the church, wherein they give up them- 
selves and children to the Lord, and subject themselves to 
the government of Christ in the church, their children are to 
be baptised." 35 

A minority of able and devout men opposed this conclu- 
sion, in the Synod and afterward. But the vote of the Synod 



33 Col. Records, i, 302. 

34 Magnalia, ii, 239. 
85 Ibid, pp. 249-250. 



1660-1679J DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 195 

was overwhelming. Its meaning has been well expressed by 
one of Connecticut's most eminent pastors and historians : 
" It did not merely provide that baptized persons growing up 
in the bosom of the church with blameless character, and 
without any overt denial of the faith in which they were 
nurtured, might offer their children for baptism without 
being required to demand and obtain at the same time the 
privilege of full communion. But it also provided that such 
persons, as a condition preliminary to the baptism of their 
children, should make a certain public profession of Chris- 
tian faith and Christian obedience, including a formal cove- 
nant with God and with the church, which at the same time 
was to be understood as implying no profession of any 
Christian experience. The former, by itself, might have 
been a comparatively harmless innovation. The latter was a 
grave theological error, hardening and establishing itself in 
the form of an ecclesiastical system." 36 

The year following this Synod, Mr. Stone, the Teacher of 
the Hartford Church, died. The next year, 1664, saw the 
association of Mr. Haynes with Mr. Whiting in the pastorate 
of the Hartford Church. 

A few months later, encouraged by the declaration of the 
Synod, and, probably, also discouraged by the attitude of the 
churches in not at once yielding to the position taken by 
the Synod, a carefully drawn petition was presented to the 
General Court by William Pitkin, 37 of Hartford, and six 



36 Dr. Bacon, Cont. to Conn. Eccl. Hist., pp. 21-22. 

37 William Pitkin, the progenitor of the family in this country, was born in 
1635, in London, England. He had an excellent English and law education, 
but left a large manuscript volume of religious writings, still extant, which 
show him to have been a man of piety, and of no mean knowledge in theology, 
also. He came to Hartford in 1659. He was Attorney for the Colony, and 
Representative in the Assembly, many years; Treasurer, in 1676; and from 
1690 till his death, in 1694, a member of the Council. He married, in 1660-61, 



I96 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

others, in October of this year, the main points of which are 
contained in the following quotation from it, viz. : 

" Our aggrevience is, that we and ours, are not under the 
due care of an orthodox ministry, that will in a due manner 
administer to us those ordinances that we stand capable of, 
as the baptising of our children, our being admitted (as we 
according to Christ's Order may be found meet) to the Lord's 
Table, and a careful watch over us in our way, and suitable 
dealing with us as we do well or ill, with all whatsoever ben- 
efits and advantages belong to us as members of Christ's 

visible church Furthermore we humbly request, that 

for the future no law in this corporation may be of any force 
to make us pay or contribute the maintenance of any min- 
ister or officer of the church that will neglect or refuse to 
baptise our children & to take care of us, as of such mem- 
bers of the church as are under his or their charge or care." 3S 



Hannah, daughter of Ozias Goodwin, brother of Elder William Goodwin. His 
character, as manifested throughout his life, and as revealed in the remarkable 
volume of his religious compositions, shows that the part he took in the church 
controversy was one in which he was sincere and moved by honorable convic- 
tions. 

38 The signers of this petition with William Pitkin, of Hartford, were 
Michael Humphrey, of Windsor ; John Stedman, of Hartford ; James Eno, of 
Windsor ; Robert Reeve, John Moses, and Jonas Westover, both the last two 
of Windsor. See Stiles' Windsor, pp. 167-168. This was an old grievance. 
As long before as 1639, the "Elders of the seuerall Churches in New England" 
had had occasion to reply to questions on this matter put to them by " divers 
Ministers in England," and had especially addressed themselves to the interrog- 
atory, " Whether you will permit such members [of English Churches] as are 
either famously knowne to yourselves to be godly, or doe bring sufficient Testi- 
monial from others that are so knowne, or from the Congregation whereof they 
were members," to join themselves to the New England churches. The cogent 
reply would probably have fitted the Hartford case, as well as the earlier ones 
in view of which it was written. It is : " Our Answer to this Question is this, 
I. That we never yet knew any to come from England in such a manner as you 
do here describe (if the things you mention be taken conjunctim, and not 
severally) viz : to be Men famously known to be godly, and to bring sufficient 
Testimoniall thereof from others that are so knowne, and from the Congregation 
itselfe, whereof they were members : We say we never yet knew any to come to 
us from thence in such a manner, but one or other of the things here mentioned 
are wanting : and generally this is wanting in all of them, that they bring no 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. i^j 

The meaning of this was that Mr. William Pitkin and his 
associates, having been members of the English National 
Church, desired to be accounted, on the basis of that relation- 
ship, without further requirement, members of the Congre- 
gational churches of the places where they resided in New 
England. 

Their appeal to the Court met with sympathy. That body, 
at the same session, took the following action : 

"This Court vnderstanding by a writing presented to them 
from seuerall persons of this Colony, that they are agrieved 
that they are not interteined in church fellowship ; This 
Court haueing duly considered the same, desireing that the 
rules of Christ may be attended, doe commend it to the min- 
isters and churches in this Colony to consider whither it be 
not their duty to enterteine all such persons, whoe are of an 
honest and godly conuersation, haueing a competency of 
knowledg in the principles of religion, and shall desire to 
joyne w th them in church fellowship, by an explicitt covenant, 
and that they haue their children baptized, and that all the 
children of the church be accepted and acco td reall members 
of the church, and that the church exercise a due Christian 
care and watch ouer them ; and that when they are growne 
up, being examined by the officer in the presence of the 
church, it appeares in the judgement of charity, they are duely 
qualifyed to perticipate in that great ordinance of the Lords 
Supper, by theire being able to examine themselues and 
discerne the Lords body, such persons be admitted to full 
comunion. 



Testimoniall from the Congregation itselfe : and therefore no marvell if they 
have not been admitted (further than before hath been expressed in Answer to 
Quest. I.) to Church Ordinances with us, before they have joyned to one or 
other of our Churches ; for though some that came over bee famously knowne 
to ourselves to be Godly, or bring sufficient Testimoniall with them from 
private Christians, yet neither is our knowledge of them, nor Testimonial from 
private Christians, sufficient to give us Church-power over them, which we had 
need to have, if we must dispence the Ordinances of Church communion to 
them ; though it be sufficient to procure all due Reverent respect, and hearty 
love to them in the Lord." Answer of the Elders, pp. 28-29. 



igS THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

" This Court desires y* the seuerall officers of y e respectiue 
churches would be pleased to consider whither it be not the 
duty of the Court to order the churches to practice according 
to the premises, if they doe not practice w th out such order. 
If any dissent from the contents of this writing they are 
desired to help the Court w th such light as is w th them, the 
next Session of this Assembly. The Court orders the 
Secret r y to send a copy of this writing to the seuerall min- 
isters and churches in this Colony." 39 



39 Col. Records, i, pp. 437-438. How many " dissented " and " helped the 
Court with such light as was in them," is uncertain. One such document of 
dissent and help is, however, extant, in the possession of Dr. J. H. Trumbull. 
It is a closely written argument of sixteen pages, signed by Adam Blackman and 
Thomas Hanford, " in the name and with the consent " of the two churches at 
Stratford and Norwalke, respectively. It strenuously maintains, by appeal to 
early Ecclesiastical usage, history, and scripture, that " Saints by calling or 
Believers (made visible to charitable discern 1 by all the wayes & Rules of 

Christ) are fitt matter for a Gospell Church and no other Or this, That 

all such & only such are to be received members into Gospell Churches, as doe 
before the Lord & his people profess their faith and repentance, and subjection 
to Christ in all his ordinances, and do not blemish their profession by an 
ungospell-like conversation." The position on the other points proposed by 
the Court can be easily inferred. 

Adam Blakeman was pastor of the church at Stratford from 1640 to his death, 
in 1665. Cotton Mather says that Mr. Hooker used to declare, " If I might 
have my choice, I would choose to live and die under Mr. Blakeman's min- 
istry." Blakeman was, like Hooker, of Leicestershire, and they may have been 
acquaintances there. He made his will March 16th, 1665, containing an interest- 
ing reference to the controversy of the times. " Item. Because many of God's 
servants have been falsely accused concerning the judgement of the kinglike 
power of Christ ; though I have cause to bewail my great ignorance and weak- 
ness in acting, yet I do and hope I shall, through the strength of Christ, to my 
dying day adhere to that form of Church Discipline agreed on by the Rev. 
Elders and brethren in the year 49, now in print. And to the truth of God 
concerning that point, left on record by that famous and Rev. servant of God, 
of blessed memory, Mr. Thomas Hooker, in his elaborate work called ' The 
Survey of Church Discipline] to which most in all the churches of Christ then 
gathered in this colony gave their consent as appears in the Rev. Author's 
epistle, so at Milford, New-Haven, Guilford, and those in the Bay, who could 
be come at in that stress 6f time. And, I being one who in the name of our 
church, subscribed that copy, could never (through the grace of Christ) see 
cause to receive any other judgement, nor fall from those principles so soundly 
backed with Scripture and arguments which none yet could overturn." 

Thomas Hanford was minister at Norwalk from 1652 to his death, in 1693. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. T gg 

This was an explicit notice to the churches that the con- 
clusions of the Synod were to be backed up, if need be, by 
the "order" of the General Court. All which indicates that 
while the government favored the parish or " Presbyterian " 
way, the churches were slow in departing from the principles 
on which they were founded. The leaven, however, was 
fermenting. 

It is at this point, and as the issue of all this line of ante- 
cedents, that John Davenport's letter lifts the curtain on the 
dramatic spectacle of the June lecture-day in 1666. The 
water made ready. " Yong M r Heynes " preaching and pre- 
pared to administer the rite of baptism to some child or 
children of parents not communicants. Forbidden to pro- 
ceed by his senior colleague, Mr. Whiting. Old Mr. War- 
ham — converted from his seven years' practice of the usage 
at Windsor 40 — now attempting to testify against it, but 
rudely silenced by declarations that he was out of his place. 
The stormy break-up of the meeting. The challenge for 
debate. The obvious popularity of the innovating measures, 
and "yong M r Heynes," who represented them. 

Up to this time, as Mr. Davenport declares, " the most of 
the churches in this jurisdicon [were] professedly against 
the new way both in judgment and practice upon Gospel 
Grounds, n. Newhaven, Milford, Stratford, Brandford, Gill- 
ford, Norwalke, Stamford, and those nearer to Hartford, 
n. Farmington, and the sounder parte of Windsor, together 
with thier Reverend Pastor M r Warham, and, I thinck, M r 
Fitch and his church also." 41 

Nor did the Hartford Church, or its senior Pastor, cer- 
tainly, yield' immediately. A report of a curious interview, 



40 Stiles' Windsor, p. 172. 

41 Mass. Hist. Coll., xxx, 60. 



200 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

in which Mr. William Pitkin again appears urging the claims 
of his English church-membership, is preserved to us in the 
writing of Mr. Whiting. 42 It is as follows : 

" 1666, 9 ber [November] 22. Joseph Fitch, Nicolas Olm- 
sted, J no Gilbert, John Stedman, W m Pitkin & Edward 
Grannis, came to speak with me, Mr. James Richards, James 
Steele, John Cole, and Andrew Benton, being present, at 
Mr. Willys his house. Mr. Pitkin in the name of the rest 
before mentioned, told me that they did desire comunion 
with the church of Hartford in all the ordinances of Christ. 

" My answer was I did desire to know upon what account 
they desired that comunion, whether upon account of any 
union they had already with the church of Hartford or an 
union they should have by joining to it. W m Pitkin 
answered they did desire it upon account of a union they 
had already (being in covenant or church members) but if 
anything further were required by rule they would attend it. 
Whereunto I returned answer that I knew no such union 
they had to the Church of Hartford as to entitle them to 
comunion in all the ordinances of Christ, but however that I 
would consider of their motion and give them further answer 
in some convenient time." 

Probably Mr. Whiting never gave a favorable answer. 
But the questions raised refused to be quieted. The ever- 
ready General Court interfered again, and in October, 1666, 
ordered a " Synod " of " all y e Preacheing Elders and Min- 
isters " of the Colony, together with four ministers from 
Massachusetts, including Rev. Jonathan Mitchell, the ac- 
knowledged leader of the new way in ecclesiastical affairs, to 
meet in Hartford in the following May. 43 The Court formu- 
lated seventeen " Questions to be disputed;" 44 and, pending 



42 Mss. Rec. Conn. EccL, \, 10. Copied by C. J. Hoadly. 

43 Col. Rec., ii, 53-54. 

44 A few of the Questions will suffice. " 1. Whether federall holines or 
couen 1, interest be not y e propper grounde of Baptisme. 3. Whether the adult 



1660-1679-] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 2 Ol 

the Synod's meeting, said, "It is desired by this Court and 
solemnly commended to y e churches and people in this Juris- 
diction, to suspend all matters controuersall and y e practice 
of them not formerly receaued and practiced in y e churches 
here vntil an orderly decision be giuen by y e Synod in May 
next." But before May came around the Court had appar- 
ently heard something from the churches. This imposition 
of a clerical " Synod " on them, without their voice in its 
call, was something they were not yet prepared for. The 
Court, anyway, saw reason to alter the title of the assembly 
it had summoned, and voted " to stile them an Assembly of 
the Ministers of this Colony called together by the Generall 
Court." 45 

The Assembly met as appointed, but adjourned without 
debate till autumn. It never met again. Mr. Whiting, Mr. 
YVarham, and Mr. Hooker of Farmington, opposers of the 
new way in Congregationalism, wrote to the Court, asking 
for a '' more generall convention of meet persons sent from 
the Churches from the Massachusetts & o r selves ; " iG Mr. 



seed of visible belieuers, not cast out, be not true members and the subiects of 
Church watch. 4. Whether ministeriall officers are not as truly bound to bap- 
tize the visible disciples of X T providentially setled amongst them, as officially 
to preach the Word. 9. Whether it doth not belong to y e body of a Towne 
collectiuely, taken joyntly, to call him to be their minister whom the Church 
shal choose to be their officer. 16. Whether a Synod haue a decisive power." 

45 Felt suggests (vol. ii. 466] that this alteration of "stile" was owing to 
prejudice against the title of Synod because of association with the Half-way 
Covenant Synod of 1662. The more probable reason is that the strict Congre- 
gationalists objected to a " Synod " called by State authority, in which the 
churches had no voice ; whose findings were likely, under that title, to be 
imposed upon them by the same power. The objection to the call of a Synod 
thus, on the part of some of the Massachusetts churches, came near being fatal 
to the Cambridge Synod of 1648. (See Winthrop's Journal, ii, 329.) Doubt- 
less strict Congregationalists objected, also, to calling anything a Synod in 
which there were not lay delegates, and discerned in a merely clerical body, 
endued with ecclesiastical authority, something of a Presbyterian quality. 

46 Col. Rec, ii, 70. 

26 



202 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

Bulckley and Mr. Haynes, friends of the new way, wrote 
asking that the meeting already called might go on as first 
intended. 47 The Court seconded the suggestions of the 
former petitioners so far as to call on the churches to send 
their " ministers to joyne in councill w th such of the Massa- 
chusetts & Plimouth as shall be appoynted." 48 The scheme, 
however, fell through. The probability seems to be that the 
views of the Connecticut churches were discerned to be so 
adverse to the parish way, and the Presbyterianizing ten- 
dency to put the decision of matters into clerical hands only, 
as to render the experiment of a discussion and vote upon 
the subject hazardous to the success of the new departure. 
"Measures were therefore adopted to prevent the meeting 
and result of the assembly." 49 

The agitation, however, continued. By the spring of the 
following year, May 1668, the General Court, apparently at 
last despairing of settling matters by "orders" and "dis- 
putes," designated Rev. Messrs. James Fitch, Gershom 
Bulckley, Joseph Eliott, and Saml. Wakeman " to consider 
of some expedient for our peace, by searching out the rule 
and thereby cleareing up how farre the churches and people 
may walke together within themselves and one w th another in 
the fellowship and order of the Gospel, notwithstanding some 
various apprehensions amongst them in matters of discipline 
respecting membership and baptisme &c." 50 This was, at 
last, a sensible and Christian measure. The same Court 



v Trumbull, i, 458. 

48 Col. Records, ii, 70. 

49 Trumbull, i, 457. See also pp. 456-459. Bradstreet's Journal says, 
" This year there was a Synod called at Hartford to discuss some points con- 
cerning baptism and church discipline ; but nothing was concluded, the Congre- 
gational party \i. e., the adherents of the old way], which was the greatest, vio- 
lently opposing the Presbyterian [/. e., the advocates of the new way]. 

50 Col. Rec, ii, 84. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 203 

appointed a " day of Humiliation," in view of the " con- 
tinuance of diuisions in seuerall plantations and societies 
amongst us." 

The ministers empowered to " consider some expedient of 
peace," made "returne" to the Court in May 1669; and the 
Court, at the same session, passed the following important 
resolve 51 — a practical repeal of the order of March 1658, 
enacted to defeat Elder Goodwin's "withdrawing" party, 
and which forbade separate church assemblies : 

" This Courte haueing seriously considered the great divi- 
sions that arise amongst us about matters of Church Gouern- 
ment, for the honor of God, wellfare of the Churches, and 
preseruation of the publique peace so greatly hazarded, doe 
declare that whereas the Congregationall Churches in these 
partes for the generall of their profession and practice haue 
hitherto been approued, we can doe no less than still approue 
and countenance the same to be w th out disturbance vntill 
better light in an orderly way doth appeare ; but yet foras- 
much as sundry persons of worth for prudence and piety 
amongst us are otherwise perswaded (whose wellfare and 
peaceable satisfaction we desire to accomadate) This Court 
doth declare that all such persons being allso approued 
according to lawe, orthodox and sownd in the fundamental^ 
of Christian religion may haue allowances of their perswa- 
sion and profession in church wayes or assemblies w th out 
disturbance." 

" Until better light in an orderly way doth appeare," this, 
as Dr. Bacon remarks/ 2 is " particularly significant." It inti- 
mates another ecclesiastical system, not the original one of 
the churches, the "system of all national churches, and 
therefore of the Presbyterian party in the Long Parliament 
and the Westminster assembly " as " looming in the future " ; 



61 Ibid, 109. 

52 Contributions to Eccl. Hist., p. 28. 



204 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-167 9. 

" a system under which the local church as a covenantee^, 
brotherhood of souls renewed by the experience of God's 
grace, was to be merged in the parish ; and all persons of 
good moral character living within the parochial bounds, 
were to have, as in England or Scotland, the privilege of 
baptism for their households, and of access to the Lord's 
table." 53 

The immediate effect of this action of the Court, how- 
ever, was to open a way of escape from their embarrassment 
to the minority of the Hartford Church. 

" Yong M r Heynes " and his party for synodical authority, 
the parish way, and " large baptisme " were obviously in the 
ascendancy. Whether the younger Pastor up to this time 
had actually practiced the baptism allowed by the Clerical 
Assembly of 1657 and the " Synod" of 1662, and for which 
water had been made ready in the Hartford meeting-house 
in 1666, is perhaps uncertain. Very likely in the four years' 
of quarrel and the growing ascendency of " his partie " which 
had followed, he had done so. 54 

The question might be more doubtful than it is — when the 
attitude of his senior associate on that memorable June lec- 
ture-day is recalled — were it not for some rather surprising 
facts shortly to be noticed. 



63 Ibid, p. 29. 

54 Dr. Trumbull's statement (vol. i, p. 471) that the practice of " Owning the 
Covenant," which was a part of the new system of baptism, was " introduced 
by Mr. Woodbridge" in the First Church in Hartford in 1696, and "does not 
appear to have obtained in the churches of this Colony until the year 1696," is 
strangely incorrect. The Windsor Church practiced the new way of baptism 
for some years immediately following the Assembly of 1657; the Second 
Church of Hartford practiced the " Owning of the Covenant " from its estab- 
lishment in 1670 ; and the First Church had probably practiced it still earlier 
than the Second. The records of the First Church still extant (the earlier hav- 
ing been lost) begin with Mr. Woodbridge's ordination in 1685, when the sys- 
tem was in full, and doubtless long-established operation. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 205 

Soon after the passage of the resolution of May 1669, an 
ecclesiastical Council was apparently convened, which ad- 
vised a separation of the minority from the Hartford Church 
and their establishment in separate church-estate. 55 In 
October following, the General Court acted 56 on a petition 
which had been " presented by Mr. Whiting &c. for a dis- 
tinct walkeing in Congregational Church order as hath been 
here setled according to Counsell of the Elders," advising "the 
Church of Hartford to take some effectuall course that Mr. 
Whiting &c. may practice the Congregationall way w th out 
disturbance either from preaching or practice diuersly to their 
just offence, or els to grant their loveing consent to their 
bretheren to walke distinct, according to such their Congrega- 
tionall principles, which this Court alowes liberty in Hartford 
to be done. But if both these be refused or neglected by the 
Church, then these bretheren may in any regular way attend 
to release, and relieue themselves w th out offence to the Court. 
In the vote for this aboue written order there dissented 
fower Assist 3 & fowerteen Deputies." 

Whether the Church consented to the departure, the per- 
ishing of the records forbids determination. But on the 22d 
of February following — 1670 — Rev. Mr. Whiting and thirty- 
one members of the Hartford Church, with their families, 
withdrew and formed themselves, by the advice of a Council, 
into a distinct Church. 57 



55 Trumbull, i, p. 461. The number of the inhabitants of Hartford at this 
time of the division into two ecclesiastical establishments, is approximately 
to be inferred from the list of freemen, taken in October of this year. From 
this list it appears that in Hartford there were one hundred and seventeen 
freemen ; of whom fifty were on the north side, and sixty-seven on the south 
side of the Little River. Col. Rec, ii, pp. 518-19. 

56 Col. Rec, ii, p. 120. 

67 This, of course, involved the institution of a new way of providing for 
ministerial and parish expenses. Up to this time the vote of the town had 



206 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

They aver in their paper " read before the messengers of 
the Churches and consented to by ourselves" that "the 
Congregational way (for the substance of it) as formerly set- 
tled, professed and practiced, under the guidance of the first 
leaders of this Church of Hartford is, the way of Christ ; " 
which "way" they more especially indicate in the "main 
heads or principles " which they proceed to specify ; the 
most significant of which in its bearing on the long struggle 
through which they had passed are these : 

" 1. That visible saints are the only fit matter, and con- 
federation the form, of a visible church 

" 3. That such a particular church being organized, or hav- 
ing furnished itself with those officers which Christ hath 
appointed, hath all power and privileges of a church 
belonging to it 

" 4. That the power of guidance or leading, belongs only 
to the eldership, and the power of judgment, consent, or 



been taken on all such questions. No direct legislative authority for the estab- 
lishment of the new method in reference to this separation into Societies of the 
Hartford community, appears to have been preserved. But on p. 52 of the 
Book of the General Laws of 1672-3, the following emendation of a former law 
concerning Ministers' Mayntenance, was doubtless prompted by the separation 
at Hartford : " This Court Doe order that all those who are or ought to be 
taught in the Word in the several Plantations shall be respectively called to- 
gether once in each year to consider what may be meet maintainance for the 
ministry of that Society to which they belong and to conclude the same ; and 
whatever sum shall be agreed upon by the Major part of the Society, the par- 
ticular sums assessed upon each person by a just Rate shall be collected and 
Levied as other Town Rates ; Provided where there are more than one Assem- 
bly in a Town they shall severally meet to Consider and determine as afore- 
said, and all persons shall Contribute to one or both of those Societies within 
their Township, and in case any Society shall fail of allowing a suitable main- 
tainance to the Minister or Ministry of their Society, upon Information or Com- 
plaint made thereof to the next County Court in that County they are hereby 
Ordered to appoint what maintainance shall be allowed to the Minister, and 
shall Order the Selectmen to Assess the Inhabitants, which Assessment shall 
be levied by some Officers appointed thereto, as other Rates, and in Wheat, 
Peas, and Indian Corn, a third of each; Always Provided that an Honorable 
allowance be made to every Minister according to the ability of the place or 
people." 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 207 

privilege, belongs to the fraternity, or brethren in full com- 
munion." 58 

This is sound original Congregationalism. It was a 
timely assertion of it. And it indicates very distinctly the 
opposition of those who drew up the statement, to the Pres- 
byterianizing tendency which was, in Church and State 
alike, now so strongly emphasizing synodical authority and 
the parish-way. 59 But on one point of practice which had 



58 Trumbull, i, p. 462. 

59 The new Church followed its declaration of principles by the adoption of 
the following Covenant, which, as it suggests an interesting enquiry, is here 
quoted in full : 

" Since it hath pleased God, in his infinite mercy, to manifest himself willing 
to take unworthy sinners near unto himself, even into covenant relation to and 
interest in him, to become a God to them and avouch them to be his people, 
and accordingly to command and encourage them to give up themselves and 
their children also unto him : 

" We do therefore this day, in the presence of God, his holy angels, and this 
assembly, avouch the Lord Jehovah, the true and living God, even God the 
Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, to be our God, and give up ourselves 
and ours also unto him, to be his subjects and servants, promising through 
grace and strength in Christ, (without whom we can do nothing,) to walk in 
professed subjection to him as our only Lord and Lawgiver, yielding universal 
obedience to his blessed will, according to what discoveries he hath made or 
hereafter shall make, of the same to us ; in special, that we will seek him in all 
his holy ordinances according to the rules of the gospel, submitting to his gov- 
ernment in this particular Church, and walking together therein with all broth- 
erly love and mutual watchfulness, to the building up of one another in faith 
and love unto his praise : all which we promise to perform, the Lord helping 
us through his grace in Jesus Christ." 

Can this be the original and otherwise missing first Covenant of the Hart- 
ford Church? The subscribers to it professed their intention of reverting to 
the Congregational way "formerly settled, professed, and practiced under the 
guidance of the first leaders of this Church of Hartford." This, in their view, 
required a restatement of Congregational principles. But it did not require 
the writing of a new Covenant. On the contrary, if the Covenant of the 
founders of that Church were still known, as is impossible to doubt, it would 
seem to be the most natural thing to adhere to it. The suggestion, therefore, 
seems a not unlikely one that the first Covenant of the old Church may be pre- 
served through the new. The earliest formula preserved on the documents of 
the First Church is one inscribed by Rev. Timothy Woodbridge in the spring 
of 1695, in a kind of memorandum book of Church matters begun by him ten 
years previously, and is drawn up especially in behalf of Half-way-Covenant 



208 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

been a chief issue at one stage of the contest, and which 
was really at bottom the vital question in it, we are con- 
fronted by what seems a surprising fact. The new church 
which went off from the old as the representative of the 
pure " Congregationall way, as formerly settled, professed, 
and practiced, under the guidance of the first leaders of the 
Church of Hartford," at once began the usage of Half-way- 
Covenant baptism. Thirty-six " children of the Church, or 
members not yet in full communion," owned the Covenant, 
apparently on the day of the organization of the Second 
Church of Hartford, and " some of them were married peo- 
ple, who immediately thereafter brought their children to be 
baptized." 60 

This significantly shows two things ; first, the strength of 
the tide for the larger baptism which had begun to run so 
powerfully that even its former opponents no longer re- 
sisted ; and, second, the curious way in* which, in the .pro- 
gress of a controversy, the struggle shifts ground, and the 
real issues and watchwords change. 

The original issue was the relation to the church of those 
who, having been baptized in infancy or in England, desired 
a voice in church action and a participation in church priv- 
ileges. It came to be a question, apparently, of relatively 
almost theoretic interest, concerning synodical authority, 
and of rights of self-administration ; asserted, too, at the 
same moment that the great practical concession of Half- 
way-Covenant baptism rendered the assertion comparatively 
nugatory. There is no evidence that the reassertion of the 
" Congregational way as formerly settled, professed, and 



assentors, and by no means negatives the idea that another one, and possibly 
the one adopted by the Second Church, may have been, even then, the formula 
for admission to full communion. 

6 ' J Dr. Parker's Historical Address, pp. 32-35. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 209 

practiced, under the guidance of the first leaders of the 
Church of Hartford," connected as it was with the adoption 
of the Half-way-Covenant practice, enabled or inclined the 
Second Church to present any lasting opposition to the 
Presbyterianizing tendency of things in Connecticut. It did 
serve, however— as did the action of a majority of the 
Windsor church, where it was the large-Congregationalists 
instead of the strict-Congregationalists who severed them- 
selves from the old church — to give momentary name to 
the struggle, as a struggle between Congregationalism and 
Presbyterianism. Mr. Bradstreet of New London records in 
his diary for the winter of 1669-70: "This winter Hartford 
chh. divided. Mr. Whyting and his party refusing to hold 
comunion with Mr. Haynes and his party (on account of 
some differences in Point of chh. govern 1 ) Mr. Haynes and 
those with him being lookt upon as Presbyterians." 61 And 
similar divisions of sentiment respecting ministerial and 
synodical authority and the parish way, existing in other 
churches not split by the diversity, are plainly indicated in 
the statement made ten years later, in " An Answer to the 
queries of the Lords of Trade and Plantations," viz.: " Our 
people in this Colony are some of them strict Congrega- 
tionall men, others more large Congregational men, and some 
moderate Presbyterians. And take the Congregational men 
of both sorts they are the greatest part of the people in the 
Colony." 62 

Mr. Whiting continued the honored pastor of the Second 
Church in Hartford till his death on September 8, 1689. 



61 N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., viii, p. 327. Mr. Bradstreet also records (ix, p. 
45) " Mch. 18, 69-70. My Br. Benjamin Woodbridge was ordained minister 
of the Presbyterian party (as they are accounted) of Windsor." 

62 July 5, 1680. 
27 



2io THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1660-1679. 

Cotton Mather speaks of him as one "who will never be for- 
gotten till Connecticut Colony do forget itself and all reli- 
gion." 63 

Left in sole charge of the Church, Rev. Mr. Haynes con- 
tinued its Pastor for a little more than nine years. Appar- 
ently the experience of the Church had satisfied it with the 
trial of the dual pastorate. It did not repeat the experi- 
ment for a hundred and ninety-two years ; nor then with 
entire success. Committed to the large-Congregational way, 
inclined to synodical supervision and clerical authority, the 
old Church swung with the general drift of the tide at that 
day. Little is known of its special experiences, contempo- 
raneous documents Which might illustrate its history having 
mostly vanished. 64 



03 He received a grant from the General Court of "two hundred acres of 
land for a farme." On the 27th of August, 1675, he was by the Council of 
Connecticut "nominated and desired to goe forth w th o r army to be a minister 
unto them " in the Indian war then waging. He preached the Election Ser- 
mon at Hartford May 13, 1686, " The Way of IsraePs Welfare" etc. Boston, 
1686, pp. (6), 44. 

He had fourteen children, seven by his wife Sybil Collins of Cambridge, 
whom he married about 1654, and seven by his second wife, Phebe Gregson, 
whom he married in 1673. Samuel, the seventh child of his first wife, born 
April 22, 1670, was the first minister of Windham. Rev. John Whiting was 
buried near his associate Mr. Stone in the old burying-ground back of the First 
Church. 

64 March 22, 1675, a Day of Fasting and prayer was kept for confession of 
sin and renewal of Covenant. The Norwich Church, observing this day, 
adopted (among others) these rules : " I. All males who are eight or nine years 
of age, shall be presented before the Lord in his Congregation every Lord's Day 
to be catechised till they be about thirteen years of age. 2. Those about thir- 
teen years of age, both male and female, shall frequent the meetings appointed 
in private for their instruction, while they continue under family government, 
or until they are received into full communion in the church. 3. Adults who 
do not endeavor to take hold of the Covenant shall be excommunicated." 

On the 29th of December, 1676, "The townsmen agreed with W m Goodwin 
to sweep the meeting house and ring the Bell Sabbaths and public meetings of 
the Town or Side, and at nine of the Clock at night, for which he is to have 
seven pounds per annum. He is also to dig graves and warn publick meetings 
as the Townsmen shall appoint for which he shall be paid as Robert Sanford 
was." Town Records. 



1660-1679.] DIVISION OF THE CHURCH. 2 II 

About 1668, or two years before the separation of the 
Church, Mr. Haynes married Sarah, daughter of Richard 
Lord. 65 And on the 24th of May, 1679, at the still early 
age of about thirty-eight he died, having served the Church 
fifteen years ; four years in connection with Mr. Whiting 
and eleven years as sole Pastor. 

He was buried beside his father, the honored Governor of 
the Colony, and beside Hooker and Stone, the ministers of 
his boyhood and youth. 



65 Mr. Haynes had four children : 

1. John, born 1669; graduated at Harvard College 1689; Assistant Judge, 
etc.; died November 27, 1713, leaving one son, John, who dying in 1717 without 
issue, extinguished the male line of descent and the name. 

2. Mabel, died unmarried about 17 13. She was (according to a Church 
record of April 18, 1708) what is now called "unfortunate," but on confession 
"was accepted." 

3. Sarah, married in 1694 Rev. James Pierpont of New Haven as his sec- 
ond wife, and died in 1697 leaving one daughter, Abigail. 

4. Mary. 

Mr. Haynes left a will dated February 26, 1676, with a codicil dated May 23, 
1679. The whole amount of his estate, which was large for those days, was 
^2,280 17J. 

;s items were : 

7 cows, 
2 old oxen, 
2 young oxen, 
6 young steers, 

8 steeres more, 
2 heifers, 

4 young cattell, 

5 year old cattell, 
1 cart horse, 

1 horse more, 2 mares, 2 colts." 
" Books prized by Mr. Gershom Bulkly and Mr. Jno. Woodbridge, ^51 
I2J. 4d." 



Among its items were : 




"Homestead, 


- £250 


Parcel of Meadow, - 


200 


Land in South Meadow, - 


160 


Land in the Ox Pasture, - 


50 


Land in Farmington, 


800 " 



CHAPTER IX 



ISAAC FOSTER AND EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 

Sometime late in 1679 or early in 1680, Isaac Foster was 
ordained in the pastorate of the First Church in Hartford, 
left vacant by the untimely death of Joseph Haynes. Dr. 
Hawes, in the historical sermon preached by him on June 
26, 1836 — two hundred years after the arrival of the Church 
from Cambridge on its present soil — says of Isaac Foster : 
" The late Dr. Strong remarks of him, that ' he was eminent 
for piety and died young.' This is the only record that 
remains of him, and though brief, it is honorable, and places 
him among the just whose memory is blessed." * 

Fortunately the developments of Time in this instance, as 
so often, enable us to discern, a little more distinctly than 
that brief statement of his piety and early death allowed 
Drs. Strong and Hawes to do, what manner of man he was 
who preceded them in the pastorate. 

Isaac Foster was son of William Foster, a ship captain of 
Charlestown, Mass. He was born, probably in 1652; about 
which date also his mother, Ann, daughter of Wm. Bracken- 
bury, was admitted to the church in Charlestown. 2 Enter- 
ing college in 1667, he graduated at Harvard in the class of 



1 Centennial Discourse, p. 14. 

2 Wm. Foster, the father, died May 8, 1698, aged about eighty; his wife, Ann, 
was admitted to Charlestown Church, Sept. 25, 1652, and died Sept. 22, 17 14, 
aged eighty-five. 



1679-1682.J ISAAC FOSTER. 21 3 

1671, having Samuel Sewall, afterward Chief Justice of 
Massachusetts, and Samuel Mather, afterward minister at 
Windsor, among his classmates. 

It is supposed to have been in the autumn following his 
bachelor's degree that he, with his father, was taken prisoner 
by the Turks, Oct. 21, 1671, while on a voyage in his father's 
vessel, the Dolphin, carrying a cargo of fish to Bilbao. The 
prisoners were redeemed in November 1673. The event 
was made the occasion of one of the poetical " composures " 
of Michael Wigglesworth ; 3 and also of a tribute to the 
efficaciousness of the prayers of John Eliot, by Cotton 
Mather, who records that " Mr. Eliot, in some of his next 
prayers, before a very solemn congregation, very broadly 
begged, Heavenly father work for the redemption of thy poor 
servant Foster, and if the prince who detains him will not, as 
they say, dismiss him as long as himself lives, Lord we pray 
thee to kill that cruel prince ; kill him and glorify thyself 
upon him. And now behold the answer : the poor captived 
gentleman quickly returns to us ... . and brings us news 
that the prince which hath hitherto held him, was come to 
an untimely death, by which means he was now set at 
liberty." i Ransomed from captivity, Isaac Foster appears 
to have continued some years in the vicinity of Charles- 
town, and in May 1678, "was installed ffellow" of Harvard 
College, a Fellowship he seems to have held about two 
years. 5 

While thus occupied, the attention of the church of 
Charlestown was turned toward him, and Revs. John Sher- 
man and Increase Mather recommended him to the com- 



3 Lossing's Am. Hist. Rec, i, 393. 

4 Magnalia, i, 493. 

5 Sibley's Harvard Graduates, ii, p. 337. 



214 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

mittee of that church as the "fittest" or "suitablest person" 
to succeed Mr. Shepard in that pastorate. 6 During the 
presence of the Charlestown committee at Cambridge for 
the purpose of negotiating with Mr. Foster, in April 1678, 
Governor Hinckley of the Plymouth Colony, " came from 
the Church at Barnstable, and earnestly urged Mr. Foster to 
go thither." 7 Gov. Hinckley wrote two letters in behalf of 
the Barnstable church, saying : 

" It is the joint desire both of our church and town that 
you would please give us a visit and impart some spiritual 
gift unto us, that so, having some taste of each other, both 
you and we may better discern what the mind of God may 
be respecting the motion above said, and accordingly apply 
ourselves .... For aught I know, it may, all things con- 
sidered, be as comfortable for you as a more populous 
place." 8 

The language is archaic ; but the argument has the 
familiarity of a committee-man's of to-day. The Charles- 
town overture fell through, apparently by reason of the 
people's preference for the son of their former minister, the 
third Thomas Shepard of fragrant memory in New England 
history. Why the Barnstable negotiation came to naught, 
does not appear. 

The next passage in Mr. Foster's life brings him nearer 
to Hartford. A long quarrel in the church at Windsor, 
similar to that which divided the Church at Hartford, was, 
in the winter of 1678-9, in hopeful process of settlement. 
On the 14th of January 1679, the town voted to apply to 
the " Rev d Council," whose advice had been largely effica- 
cious in composing the difficulties, for assistance in procur- 



6 Mass. Hist. Coll., xxi, 256. 

7 Ibid, xxx vi, 13. 

8 Ibid, pp. 14-16. 



1679-1682.] ISAAC FOSTER. 21 5 

ing a minister. 9 The Council recommended Rev. Samuel 
Mather and Rev. Isaac Foster as suitable candidates. The 
congregation, by a majority vote, Jan. 27, 1679, agreed upon 
this recommendation to obtain "the said Mr. Foster, pro- 
vided it appears by sufficient information from such Hon ble 
and Rev d Gent" 1 in the Massachusetts to whom we shall 
apply by a messenger, that he is not only Congregationally 
persuaded, but otherwise accomplished to carry on the work 
of Christ amongst us." 10 

To get this " sufficient information " as to how Mr. Foster 
stood on the Congregational or Presbyterial issue, Mr. Whit- 
ing, of the Second Church of Hartford, one of the Council 
in the case, wrote a letter to Increase Mather of Boston, 
to which letter John Allyn " added a postcript, bearing date 
February 27, 1679, ^ n tne letter Mr. .Whiting says : 12 

" The two congregations at Windsor, having mutually in- 
gaged themselves to submitt to the advice of a Council!, . . . 
they are accordingly advised to a re-union and walk in the 
Congregationall way according to Synods 48 and 62. 13 . . . . 
The Councill (under whose guidance the matter yet remains) 



9 Stiles' Windsor, p. 184. 

10 Ibid, p. 185. 

11 John Allyn, of Windsor and Hartford, was one of the most important per- 
sons of the Colony. He was son of Matthew Allyn of Windsor ; was born in 
England ; was Deputy in the General Court in 1661 and 1662 ; Magistrate and 
Secretary in 1663-1665 ; and from 1667 to 1693, Secretary of the Colony, occu- 
pying besides many public trusts. His handwriting is visible everywhere in 
the documents of the period — in Town, Colonial, Probate, Religious Society 
records. One wonders at what must have been his marvelous industry. He 
married Nov. 19, 1651, Anne, daughter of Henry Smith of Wethersfield, and 
died Nov. 6, 1696. He sleeps under a eulogistically inscribed monument, 
which, however, gives him none too high a title to remembrance, in the Old 
Burying Ground. 

12 Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxviii, 463-464. 

13 It is significant of the general yielding of contest on the Half-way-Cove- 
nant baptism question, that the Council, represented in this letter by Mr. Whit- 
ing, appeals as to a standard of orthodoxy, to the Half-way-Covenant Synod of 
1662, whose conclusions Mr. Whiting, in 1666, had so vigorously opposed. 



2i6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

. . desires that you would be pleased (with the Rev d M r 
Oakes to whom I have also written to that end) to intimate 
in a few words whither M r fibster be from ingagement, 
and then how qualified in respect of godliness and learning, 
. . . . and particularly what his judgment is in respect of 
church order : whether indeed declaredly Congregationall, 
that being of considerable weight to the settlement of that 
people, as well as comfort of their neighbors." 

To this letter of Mr. Whiting's, Increase Mather replied 
March 10, 1679 : 14 

" Rev. & Dear Sir : I received your Ire (with Capt. Allyn's 
name also subscribed) wherein you desire information con- 
cerning M r Isaac Foster. I beleeve hee is truly godly. I 
know that hee is of good parts both nat 1 & acquired, & indeed 
more psed in preaching than most I have known of his stand- 
ing. As for his judg* respecting church order I have not 
heard him fully declare himself e. When he joyned the 
church in Charlestown 15 he . . . . that he was not satisfyed 
in that practice of imposing . . . respecting the work of 
grace, upon such as they admitted to full comunion ; when 
some here regarded him to be a Presbyterian. This day hee 
was with me in my study. I desired him to tell me playnly 
what his notions were as to matters referring to church govt. 
His answer was that he believed he knew the reason of my 
proposal, for .... had acquainted him with what yourself 
had written to Mr. Oakes & me, & upon that account he 
was not so free to express himselfe ; onely s d that he had 
never upon any occasion declared against the way Congrega- 
tional. To be sure he is as large respecting the subject of 
Baptisme as the Synod in 62. You cannot expect that Mr. 
O. & myselfe (being members of the Corporation) shld be 
forward in removing any of the Fellows from the Colledge, 
that are desirable ; of which niibr Mr. Foster is one. And I 
question whether his friends will be willing that hee shd goe 



14 Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxviii, 193. 

15 Oct. 28, 1677. 



1 679-1682.] ISAAC FOSTER. • 2 \J 

so far as Windsor is from these pts. Yet if you see cause 
to promote an invitation that way, I shall not discourage 
you." 

From all which, it appears that the art of finding out how 
a man stands on the main ecclesiastical question of the time, 
has not made much progress since 1679. Mr. Isaac Foster 
had all the wise caution of a modern candidate for a pulpit 
in a pretty evenly divided community ; yet appears on the 
whole to have belonged on that side of the rather wavy and 
tenuous line which divided the ecclesiastical parties of the 
day, called the " large" or Presbyterian side. 

On April 10th the Council, over the hands of John Allyn, 
James Richards, Samuel Hooker and John Whiting, reported 16 
to the Windsor committee, their favorable opinions on the 
whole respecting Mr. Foster ; but confessing to "a doubtful- 
ness still abiding concerning his persuasion in point of 
church order ; " and advising the sending of two men, Capt. 
Newberry and John Loomis, to Cambridge to interview Mr. 
Foster more carefully, and "in case they can obtain so much 
from him as shall capacitate them to assert that he is congre- 
gationally persuaded according [to the] Synod [s] [of] '48 
and '62," that they invite him ; "otherwise not to meddle." 
Four days after, the town accepted the Council's proposition, 
appointed the messengers, and agreed to give Mr. Foster 
seventy pounds a year if he came. 17 The messengers went 
to Cambridge and returned with a favorable account of Mr. 
Foster's " persuasions." Whereupon the congregation invited 
him to come to Windsor on trial, which he did, and with so 
manifest "satisfaction of his parts, ability and persuasion," 
that they not only tendered him a "unanimous call," but 



10 Stiles' Windsor, p. 185. 
v/bid,?. 186. 



28 



2i8 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

voted, instead of seventy, to give him a hundred pounds a 
year, and sent Daniel Clark back with " Mr, Foster to the 
Bay" to "further his return again." 18 This seemed to promise 
a very auspicious issue to Mr. Foster's Windsor candidacy, 
under the patronage of the ecclesiastical Council. But the 
matter fell through. Just why is unknown. 

A curious coincidence of facts may have had some untrace- 
able influence. A letter is extant, 19 bearing date May 28, 
1679, while the Windsor matter was still pending, written 
by Rev. Samuel Hooker of Farmington to Increase Mather, 
speaking hopefully of Mr. Foster's ability to bring the 
Windsor people to " Peace according to Truth;" and ending 
with the statement, "I suppose you will heare by better 
hands of the great breach made upon Hartford by the 
death of Mr. Haines, who departed the 24 of this instant." 
On the back of this letter is endorsed in the hand of Increase 
Mather, without date, the following memorandum : 

" Having discoursed with Mr. Foster upon his invitation 
from the Congregation at Windsor & finding that his spirit 
.... is altogether averse fro a closure with that motion 
wee dare not advise him to accept thereof, as concieving his 
call is not clear." Signed by Urian Oakes, Sam. Nowell, 
I. M. [Increase Mather], Saml. Terry, Thomas Graves. 

It seems not improbable that the candidature of Mr. Foster, 
having been in a manner under the patronage of the stricter 
Congregational party — so far as significance lay in the desti- 
nation — may have been not altogether acceptable to a man 
whose views at his church-membership had led to his being 
thought a "Presbyterian;" and it is not impossible that the 
vacancy at the First Church at Hartford by the death of a 
Presbyterially inclined minister may have prompted overtures 



18 ibid, p. 186. 

19 Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxviii, 339. 



1679-1682.] ISAAC FOSTER. 219 

to him which had their influence in negativing his Windsor 
call. At all events to Windsor he did not go, and to Hart- 
ford' not many months after he came; and Mr. Whiting, 
who had been anxious about his ecclesiastical proclivities, 
even as a "neighbor" six miles off, had opportunity to study 
them, as an associate minister, in Hartford town. But the 
whole process of his coming, and the whole story of his min- 
istry while here, has sustained the same eclipse which ob- 
scures so much beside, in the early history of the First 
Church. 

Some time in 1680, Mr. Foster married Mehitable [or 
Mabel] Willys, the widow of his Charlestown friend, Rev. 
Daniel Russell, granddaughter of Governor George Wyllys 
[or Willis] of Hartford, and niece of Rev. Joseph Haynes, 
Mr. Foster's predecessor in the First Church pastorate. 
He had one child, a daughter, Ann Foster, who, growing 
to womanhood, was admitted to full communion February 5, 
1699, and the same year became the wife of Rev. Thomas 
Buckingham of the Second Church. 20 

The General Court granted Mr. Foster in 1681, two hun- 
dred acres of land ; which were apparently never located till 
laid out to his heirs in 1703, in what is now the town of 
Thompson, and confirmed, three years later, to Rev. Thomas 
Buckingham and his wife Ann, Mr. Foster's daughter and 
heir. 21 



20 She was married December 14, 1699. After Rev. Mr. Buckingham's death in 
1731, his widow married Rev. Wm. Burnham of Kensington, who died in 1750, 
leaving her again a widow. In her will, dated August 23, 1764, when she must 
have been upward of 80 years of age, she gave her " large silver tankard for 
the use of the North [or First] Church forever." This tankard the Church 
sold in 1803 for $30.55. She, also, in her will manumitted five slaves, Cato, 
Paul, Prince, Zippora, and Nanny, making them bequests of land and money. 
Previous to her death, she had by deed, given her house and homestead to the 
Second Church. 

21 Col. Records, iii, pp. 92-93. 



220 TH E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

Mr. Foster died in one of those epidemical sicknesses 
with which early Hartford seems to have been often afflicted. 
Bradstreet records in his journal, under date of August 21, 
1682, " M r Isaac Forstur, pastor of y e old chh. at Hartford 
dyed. He was aged about 30, a man of good Abilityes. His 
death has made such a breach y* it will not easily be made 
up." 22 And his co-laborer in the Hartford field, Mr. Whit- 
ing of the Second Church, writes in a letter to Increase 
Mather : 

"I thought myself necessitated to hasten, having left some 
sickness begun here, which since hath grown to a great 
hight. Most families visited, many sick and weake and some 
sleep (about 9 or 10 persons in our town) whereof Mr. Fos- 
ter (as you have heard) is one, a surprising and (circum- 
stances considered) very awful stroake to us." 23 

The young Pastor lies with his predecessors ; his slab 
recording at once his own burial-place and that of his 
successor ; a successor who took not only his office, but 
married his widow, and so he vanished from among men. 24 

In the interregnum between the death of Mr. Foster and 



22 N. E. Hist, and Gen. Reg., viii, p. 332. 

23 Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxviii, p. 465. 

24 Mr. Foster left no will. The inventory of his estate was made to the 
Court February 12, 1683. The whole amount was ^1,507 i$s. \d. 

Among the items mentioned are : 

Half the farm at Cambridge, .... ^500 

A negroe called Catoe, - - - - - 22 

House and Lott, ...... 200 

A farm at Hoccanum, - - - - - 200 

A Viall and Cithern, - .... 2 

In connection with this item of Mr. Foster's estate, which inventories " A 
negroe called Catoe," it may be recorded that in the answer made in 1680 to 
the questions of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, it was said by Governor 
Leet : " For Blacks there comes sometimes 3 or 4 in a year from Barbadoes, 
and they are sold usually at the rate of ^22 a piece, sometimes more some- 
times less, according as men can agree with the masters of vessells, or Mer- 
chants that bring them thither. But few Blacks born, and but two Blacks 
christened as we know of." 



1679-1682.] ISAAC FOSTER. 221 

the installation of his successor, the Church of Hartford was 
the recipient of a gift of a house and several parcels of land 
" to belong to the sayd Church and the ministry thereof! as a 
parsonage Land forever." The giver was John Holloway, 
who describes himself as an " unworthy member ; " and who 
was moved to this act by the "Honour and Respect" he had 
to the Church, and the consideration that he had " no Rela- 
tions in this Country." 25 



25 Mr. John Holloway, whose "deede of guift," dated November 14, 1682, is 
signed by "his X mark" died October 18, 1684; after which the accounts of 
the rental of the land given by him appear many years on the Society records. 
The memorandum of the gift on the record-book is as follows : 

" 1. The first parcell about one acre situate in Harttford abutting uppon 
Obadiah Spencers Land on the West and uppon Stephen Kelseys Land on the 
North & uppon the hyway South and East uppon which his House & Barn 
stands." [This is the lot on the angle of separation of Windsor and North 
Main streets. The property was let to Texell Ensworth yearly from 1685 to 
1701, at a rental varying from £3 to £4 10. Ebenezer Spencer rented it from 
1701 to 1704. Obadiah Spencer, Jr., from 1704 to 1705. Sergt. Nathaniel 
Goodwin, Sr., from 1706 to 1712, and John Barnard from 1713 to 1729, when 
the Society's accounts were continued in some volume now lost. On the 2d 
day of May, 1774, the Society by a committee, leased this property for 900 
years to Jonathan Wadsworth for ,£141 15J. and an annual rental of " one wheat 
corn on the first Monday of January."] 

" 2. One parcell off meadow Land uppon the East side off Connecticut River 
in Harttford Containing eight acres abbutting uppon the great River uppon the 
west." [This land was let for many years to Roger Pitkin at £4 i6s.a. year.] 

iC 3. One parcell in the pine ffielde containing Three acres be itt more or Less 
abutting uppon a hyway uppon the South and North and uppon W. Merrells his 
Land upon the east & uppon Joseph or John Colleyers Land uppon the West. 
[This land was leased for 999 years on January 19, 1759, to Caleb Turner for 
£i$ and an annual rental of one silver penny. Hartford Town Deeds, vol. x, 
p. 588.] 

"4. One parcell in the Little ox pasture Containing By estimation five acres 
be it more or Less Abutting uppon Mr. Richard Lord his Land and uppon. . . ." 

" 5. One parcell on the west side Connecticut River Called the Long hill 
Lotts ; Containing By estimation ffive acres be it more or Less abutting 
upon . . . ." 

Besides these ''parcells" of land given by John Holloway, the same page of 
the Records says : " Aliso the ffirst Church in Hartford haue, 

" 6. One parcell off Lande in the South meadow Containing ffive acres be it 
more or Less that John & Joseph Skinner have had uppon Rent many years 
abutting uppon . . . ." 



222 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

Very near this time, also, the Church had several articles 
of Communion furniture, apparently memorial gifts, as 
appears by the following entries in the records : 

" Hartford Church hath at Mrs Mary Gilberts left by the 
deacons for the Churches use Fower pewter dishes marked 
each of them with these letters R H B C D - 

"& Three Flagon Marked H. C. & one Table cloath Marked 
R k B c D ' & One pewter Bason used for Baptism Left with Wil- 
liam Goodwin, for the churches vse March 13th, 168-jj-." 

"In the yeare 1700 Mrs Mary gilbert gaue one Puter 
fflagon to the ffirst Church in Harttford." 

Here, in connection with the brief but apparently happy 
ministry of Mr. Foster, it may be as well as anywhere else, 
to glance at some early New England usages, most of which 
prevailed, doubtless, in the Hartford Church as in the churches 
generally. 

Public services on the Lord's day began about 9 o'clock. 
Congregations were called to the meeting house by the 
beating of a drum, the blowing of a cOnch-shell or a horn, 
the display of a flag, or, if the community were so fortunate 
as to have a bell, by the " wringing of a bell." 26 Hartford 



" 7. One parcel] off Land more in the Long meadow Containing By estima- 
tion fower acres & a halfe which georg Sexton hath uppon Rent many yeares 
abutting upon . . . ." 

"8. The ffirst Church in Harttford haue an interest or partt of a well In 
the hyway which hee, sd Holloway, helped to make and since his death the 
sayd Churches Tennants have used the same that Lived in the Churches 
House that was John Holloways and the Church payed Tyxhall Ensworth 
there ffirst Tennant for helpe repayring sayd well." 

26 New Haven had a "Drum" for this purpose as late as 1662 (See Daven- 
port's letter to Winthrop of that date) ; Norwalk had a drum in 1678 as 
appears by vote of town-meeting in February : " Robbart Stuard ingages y* his 
Son James shall beate the Drumb on the Sabbath and other ocations; is to 
have it for that cervice;" a "drum" was used in Cambridge in 1636 (See John- 
son's Wonder Working Providence, b. i, c. 43) ; probably after the removal to 
Hartford of a bell which had been employed previously as early as 1632 (Paige's 
Cambridge, p. 17); Hadley had a conch-shell in 1749, and Montague in 1759-60 
(See Dexter's Congregationalism in Literature, p. 452, note) ; Haverhill in 1652 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 223 

Church had a bell as early as 1641, and in all probability 
from the first ; it being with little doubt a part of the trans- 
ported establishment from Cambridge. 

Families generally divided at the church door; women 
and men separating to different sides of the house, and boys, 
to certain specified seats in the gallery or below, where an 
appointed functionary was employed, sometimes with a staff, 
to keep them in order. 

Assembled in the meeting house — which in the coldest 
weather had no appliances for warmth — the services began 
with a "solemn prayer continuing about a quarter of an 
houre." 27 It is unnecessary to remark that all prayer in 
New England worship was "unstinted" or extemporaneous. 
"Stinted prayers" were one of the chief things, to escape 
from which the fathers came out of "Babylon." But it is 
a thing worthy of more particular observation, how absolutely 
all memory of the liturgical service of the old home land 
seems to have perished from the minds of those who came 
this, side the water. The Prayer Book is the rarest of 
volumes in the contemporary libraries of the New England 
founders. Its expressions and phrases, which must have 
been a part of the very furnishing of their minds in child- 
hood, are looked for in vain in their sermons, diaries, letters, 
or recorded sayings. They had left it utterly behind. The 
new, large liberty of "free prayer" was embraced by them 
with passionate intensity. They found it suited to the vary- 



u>ed a horn ; Sunderland in 1720 had a " flagge ; " and Hartford employed a 
" flagg " in 1726, at a time when the bell was broken; the Society voting that 
" Mr. John Edwards at the charge of the Society purchase some Suitable Red 
bunting for a flagg to be set up on the State house to direct for metting vpon 
the publick worship of God." The bell was broken in 1725 and recast at the 
joint expense of the two Societies in 1727. 
27 Lechford, Plaine Dealing, p. 45. 



224 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

ing necessities of their changeful, and oftentimes exigent 
circumstances, as no possible liturgy could be. 

Prayer ended, the Teacher — or the Pastor, where the 
church had but one preaching officer — then read a passage 
of scripture, with expository comments. Mere reading, 
without exposition or "common placing" as it was called, 
was not looked upon with favor, in the early New England 
churches. 28 

After the scripture reading, "a Psalm usually succeeds. 
In some the Assembly being furnished with Psalm-books, 
they sing without the stop of Reading between every Line. 
But ordinarily the Psalm is read line after line by him whom 
the Pastor desires to do that Service ; and the people gener- 
ally sing in such grave Ttines as are most usual in the 
Churches of our nation." 29 The singing was, for the most part, 
more devout than melodious. Mather is able only to say of 
it, as late as 1727, when musical affairs in Massachusetts had 
already begun greatly to improve : " It has been commended 
by Strangers as generally not worse than what is in many 
other parts of the World." 30 The great source of the musical 
trouble, beside the neglect of all definite instruction, was the 
loss of musical notation, caused by the substitution of the 



28 By Cotton Mather's time (Ratio Diciplince, p. 6j) the practice of reading 
without necessarily commenting, had so far obtained footing as to enable him 
to say " there is perfect Charity " respecting it ; and to " put the Term of dumb 
Reading" on it, is "esteemed improper." The usage was one of slow growth, 
however, and against much disapproval. The General Association of Connec- 
ticut voted, in June, 1765, in favor of "the Decency and Propriety of making 
the Public reading of the Sacred Scriptures a part of the Public worship in our 
churches," and recommended " to the several associations to promote said prac- 
tice among the several Chhs." But as late as 1810, the Council of Litchfield 
South Consociation felt called on to pass the following vote : " That it is expe- 
dient that a portion of the holy Scriptures be read every Sabbath in our congre- 
gations." Manual, 1855, p. 43. 

29 Ratio Diciplince, p. 52. 
•»/Md, p. 54- 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 225 

Bay Psalm Book — which was first published in 1640, 
containing no tunes — for Ainsworth's, or Sternhold and 
Hopkins' versions, which had been in previous use and 
which had the musical score. 31 Music became therefore a 
matter of tradition and memory. And as the Bay Psalm 
Book was in use nearly fifty years before a few tunes 
were inserted, there was ample time for tradition to vary 
and memory to die. To add to the difficulty, no instru- 
mental accompaniment, save the pitch-pipe and tuning-fork, 
was allowed ; such assistance being supposed forbidden by 
Amos v, 23, / will not hear the melody of thy viols, and 
other passages. Singing came therefore to the pass of 
utter confusion and poverty. Tunes called by the same 
name were scarcely recognizable in congregations only a few 
miles apart. 

Many congregations did not attempt more than three or 
four tunes. The general custom was to use the Psalms in 
regular order ; and the singing exercise, which seems to have 
occurred usually but once in each service, was from a 
quarter to a half hour in its dolorous duration. 

About the first quarter of the 18th century, a general 
attempt was made to improve the music by the recall of 
"notes," and as it was termed "singing by rule." But it 
met with violent opposition. Many congregations were 
almost split on the question. The innovation was denounced 
as an insult to the memory of the fathers, and as tending to 
Papacy. "If we once begin to sing by note, the next thing 
will be to pray by rule, and preach by rule, and then comes 



31 Ainsworth's version is said to have been used in Plymouth seventy years, 
and in Salem, forty. Sternhold and Hopkins' was used however at Ipswich. 
The Bay Psalm Book was the first book ever published in British America, 
and is a version prepared by New England ministers, of whom were J. Eliot, 
R. Mather, and T. Welde. Palfrey's N. £., ii, p. 41, note. 
29 



226 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

Popery." Ministers and people, deacons and congregation, 
were, in many places, at open hostility on this burning 
question. The interposition of the civil authority was in 
some instances necessary to compose the disturbances aris- 
ing from the proposal to "sing by rule." 

The history of the matter in this First Hartford Society 
well illustrates the already well-established conservatism of 
this organization. To set it forth in this connection, it will 
be necessary to anticipate the regular progress of this chro- 
nological narrative, and to bring forward to this place events 
occurring about forty years subsequently. Doubtless, affairs 
in a musical way had gone on here as generally, till about 
1726 the subject of improved music began to be agitated in 
this region. The diary of Rev. Timothy Edwards, at East 
Windsor, and the records of the Windsor church, show that 
the new method was disquieting this Israel. 3 '" 

In 1727, the pastor of this Hartford Church, Rev. Timothy 
Woodbridge, preached a "Singing Lecture" at East Hart- 
ford, in the pulpit of his nephew, Rev. Samuel Woodbridge. 33 
The uncle was now seventy-one years of age and the 
nephew forty-four, and both were obviously on the side of 



32 Dr. Tarbox, Windsor Church 2$oth Anniversary, pp. 97-100. See "also 
Stoughton's "Windsor Farmes" pp. 96-98. 

33 The lecture was delivered in accordance with the action of the North Asso- 
ciation of the County of Hartford, at Windsor, June 6, 1727 : "This Association 
taking into Consideration the Case of Regular Singing are fully of Opinion that 
persons may well Improve their Time in taking pains to be Instructed in it as a 
means to bring persons Into the Love of that Excellent Improvement of their 
minds, and as a proper means to Introduce Singing of Psalms in Private Houses 
which thro want of Skill is too much neglected. And further we Judge this way 
of Introducing this way of Singing into our Congregations will much promote 
the Decency of our publick worshipping of our Redeemer in Singing his 
Psalms ; & by the attaining of Vnderstanding In Singing many persons that Sit 
Silent at that part of worship will be able to open their mouths to the praise of 
God and Spiritual Edification of others : and that we may give our farther 
Testimony we agree that on the Last Wednesday of this Instant June a Singing 
Lecture be Held in Hartford on the East Side of the River, when we will 
endeavour to be present." Association Records'. 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 227 

the new method. The lecture was printed, 34 with a preface 
signed Per Amicum, perhaps written by the nephew, in 
which it is said: "The following Discourse was delivered at 
a Lecture for the Encouragement of Regular Singing, a. 
comely & Commendable practice ; which for want of Care in 
preserving, and skillful Instructors to revive, has Languished 
in the Countrey till it is in a manner Lost and Dead; yea 
it has been so Long Dead, as with some it Stinketk, who 
judge it a great Crime to use meanes to Recover it againe." 

The lecture of the uncle, from the text, Matthew v, 16, 
Let your light so shine, etc., says: " Among the Conten- 
tions that have arisen in our times, an Endeavor to Rectify 
our Singing of Psalms, and the Recovery the Disorders 
thereof by bringing it to the Rule, hath been an occasion of 
Offense taken where none hath been given, which hath occa- 
sioned a very Unsuitable behaviour in some places Profess- 
ing Godliness." 

The aged preacher goes on to exhort: "Be careful of 
Censuring Persons only because they are desirous of and 
labour to Introduce Regular Singing. This is no Note of 

Unholiness or Unworthiness Be careful you do not 

Prejudice yourselves against it from such Objections as will 
not support your Opinion before Moderate and Unbyassed 
Persons." 

He then proceeds to answer some objections to the new 
way, of which the mention of two will suffice : " Another 
Objection is that it is Endeavoured to be introduced only by 
Young Men" and that " Hereby we shall cast Reflection on 
our Godly Ancestors!' 



3i The Duty of God's Professing People, in Glorifying their Heavenly Father ; 
Opened and Applyed, in a Sermon Preached at a Singing Lecture, in Hartford, 
East Society, June the 28th 1727. New London: Printed and Sold by T. 
Green. 1727. 16 mo. Pp. i-iv To the Reader, " Per Amicum: " 1-16. 



228 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

The same year the matter came before the General 
Association, met at Hartford, May 12th, a few days previous 
to the " Singing Lecture" just spoken of. Rev. Nathaniel 
Chauncy 35 read a paper which the Association, over the 
signature of " T. Woodbridge, Moderator," ordered printed, 
entitled " Regular Singing Defended and Proved to be the 
Only True Way of Singing the Songs of the Lord." 3G The 
subject proposed for discussion was : " Whether in Singing 
the Songs of the Lord we ought to proceed by a certain 
Rule, or to do it in any Loose, Defective, Irregular way that 
this or that People have Accustomed themselves unto." 
One of the reasons the essayist gives for the strong attach- 
ment to the old method is interesting. " Many will readily 
Grant that they [the singers by ear] use many Quavers and 
Semi-Quavers &c. and on this very account it is that they 
are so well pleased with it, and so loath to part with it : 
now all these Musical Characters belong wholly to Airy and 
Vain Songs, neither do we own or allow any of them in the 
Songs of the Lord." 

But notwithstanding this committal of the old Pastor and 
of the General Association to the new way, the Hartford 
Church continued in the old several years longer. It sung 
as it had sung in Isaac Foster's day, till after the long 
pastorate of Timothy Woodbridge ended, and until he, after 
advocating the reform in vain, was gathered to his fathers. 

The year after Mr. Woodbridge died, however, the Society 
took action, on the 20th of June, 1733, in this cautious and 
tentative manner : 

" Voted that this Society are willing and Content that 
Such of them as Encline to Learn to Sing by Rule should 



s5 Of Durham, the first graduate of Yale College, the only member of the 
" class " of 1702. 

30 New London, J. Green, 1727, i6mo, pp. 54. 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 229 

apply themselves in the best manner they Can to gain a 
knowledge thereof. Voted and agreed that after the Expira- 
tion of three months, Singing by Rule shall be admitted to 
be practiced in the Congregation of this Society in their 
publick Worship on the Lord's day & until their annual 
Meeting in December next ; & that then a Vote be Taken 
whether the Society will further proceed in that way or 
otherwise." 

The two leaders of the opposing methods were then 
designated to "Take on them the Care of Setting the 
Psalm " for the periods specified : "Mr. William Goodwin as 
usuall," and " Mr. Joseph Gilbert jr. after the Expiration of 
the three months." Tried thus prudently for four months, 
the Society saw its way in December to vote " that singing 
by Rule be admitted and practiced in the Congregation of 
this Society in their publick Worshipping of God," and Mr. 
Gilbert was empowered to- "sett the psalm." So that it was 
not long, probably, before it could have been said of the 
Hartford congregation, as Cotton Mather had quite exult- 
antly said some years before of the improved condition of 
things in Massachusetts churches, that " more than a Score 
of Tunes are heard Regularly Sung in their Assemblies." 37 

After the singing of the Psalm, " the Sermon follows .... 
The Length of a Sermon .... is very like the Length of a 
Tractate among the Ancients," which Cotton Mather, who 
gives this definite comparison, further says is "about an 
hoitrT 38 He, however, stipulates for greater "Liberty" on 
occasion. The preaching was, for the most part, from a very 
small brief. The practice of extended notes or fully written 
discourses, Mather speaks of as taken up only of "later 
years ; " and he elsewhere says 39 that Mr. Warham of 



37 Ratio, p. 55. 

38 Ihid, p. 57. 

39 Magnalia, vol. i, p. 399. 



230 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

Windsor, was the first man in the country to use fully 
written notes in preaching. 

In some places, as in New Haven, the congregation were 
accustomed to rise and stand "uncovered" at the reading 
of the text, as a fitting token of reverence for the word of 
God. 40 Prayer and Benediction concluded the service. 

The second service of the Lord's Day was generally 
"about two in the afternoone ; " a substantial repetition of 
the morning exercise, with a change of parts in the officiat- 
ing ministers when a church had two preaching elders ; the 
Pastor opening with exposition and prayer, and the Teacher 
delivering the sermon. 41 

The contribution was then taken, " One of the Deacons 
saying, Brethren of the Congregation, now there is time left 
for contribution, wherefore, as God hath prospered you, so 
freely offer." 42 The people came forward in the order of 
their supposed " dignity," and made such offerings as they 
chose, of money or written promise to pay hereafter, or 
sometimes of chattel articles of merchandise. In the First 
church of New Haven, and probably elsewhere, wampum 
was frequently presented as a part of the contribution. 43 

The seating of people in the congregation was a matter 
of grave and solemn concern. In the Hartford Society it 
was the occasion of constantly recurring votes, of which it 
will suffice to give only a specimen or two. 

Jan. 4, 1685. "Voted by the Society that thay desired 



40 Hutchinson, i, 430, note. " Uncovered " suggests that men sometimes wore 
their hats in church. 

41 Lechford, p. 47. 

42 Ibid, 48. 

43 The Town of New Haven has the record in this connection that " much of 
the wampum brought in is so faulty that the officers can hardly or not at all pass 
it away in any of their occasions." A fact significantly suggestive of the occa- 
sional quality of a portion of the contents of a modern contribution box. 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 23 I 

Capt. John Allyn to seate the people in our meeting howse, 
according to his Judgement and Discresion, Boath in y e 
Lower Roome and in y e Gallery." 

Dec. 28, 1691. "Made choyce of Coll John Allyn, Capt 
Cyprian Nicols, Lieut Joseph Wadsworth, Decon Joseph 
Easton and Decon Joseph Olmsted to new Seate the good 
people belong to the first Meeting house in Hartford, thare 
beeins; need of that worke to be done." 

The seaters of the house were supposed to consider the 
age, parentage, and general social standing of all members 
of the congregation, and to arrange their position in the 
meeting-house accordingly. 44 Proximity to the pulpit was 
the general principle determining the dignity of the sitting, 
modified however by the question of " square pew " or 
" long seat ; " square pews having priority of honor. Fre- 
quent heart-burnings and sometimes long-continued family- 
feuds grew out of these peremptory assignments of men to 
what the seaters chose to consider their proper place. 

Boys were a very troublesome factor of early New Eng- 
land congregations. Votes concerning this apparently irre- 
pressible portion of the Sabbath worshipers are scattered 
all along the town and society records. Out of a great 
many, a few specimens must suffice. 

Oct. 30, 1643. The Town voted, "If any boy shall be 



44 In New Haven First Church several formal votes of the sittings are pre- 
served, of which a specimen is given by Dr. Bacon, Historical Discourses, 
pp. 310-312. In Glastonbury the " dignity " of pews was thus ordered : 

1. The pewes next the pulpit (exclusive of the minister's pew) to be the first 
seat and the highest. 

2. The second pew to be the second seat. 

3. The fore seat [in the body of the house] to be the third seat; 

4. The third pew and the second seat to be equal. 

5. The fourth pew from the pulpit and the third seat to be equal, etc. 

It was not till 1757 that men and their wives were seated together in that 
church. Chapin's Glastonbury, p. 79. In East Hartford the " dignifying " of 
the house continued till 1824. Goodwin's East Hartford, p. 132. 



232 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

taken playing or misbehaving himself in the time of publick 
services whether in the meeting house, or about the walls 
without [the same to be proved by two witnesses] he shall 
be punished presently before the assembly depart, and if any 
shall be the second time faulty one witness shall be accounted 
enough." 

Dec. 23, 1697. The Society " appointed Thomas Butler 
to looke after the Boyes that are to Sett in the meeting- 
house from the North Doore to the .... that they do nott 
play upon the Sabath or in time of publique worship, and 
they made choyce of George Northway to Looke after the 
Boyes in the South side of the gallery." 

Dec. 15, 1 7 16. "Voted that all the Boyes under sixteen 
shall sit below, sume in the gard seets and sum in the alley." 

Dec. 19, 1 726. Voted that " Messrs John Cook and Thomas 
Ensign Take Care of the boyes .... to observe the disor- 
derly behaviour of boyes and young men in the Gallery at 
Meeting, and acquaint the Tything men thereof for present- 
ment to be prosecuted in the Law." 

Obviously the " Boyes " were a troublesome sort of people. 
But the effectual cure of the disorder — the seating of fami- 
lies together instead of separating husbands and wives, 
parents and children — does not seem to have occurred to our 
venerated ancestors. 

One of the important early ecclesiastical usages in New 
England was the Weekly Lecture. Some reference has 
already been made 45 to the prominent place this mid-week 
religious service held in the life of the time. To some extent 
a greater latitude of subjects than was allowed to Sunday 
services, was accorded to Lecture-day, and the general mor- 
als and manners of the community were made the topic of 
pulpit animadversion and comment. Mr. Cotton's practice 
of discussing the whole range of affairs in public and private 



ib Ante, p. 69-71. 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 233 

behaviors, was doubtless to a considerable extent indicative 
of what was customary and expected on these occasions, and 
it was very likely the anticipation of a free handling of mat- 
ters coming home to men's business and bosoms, which gave 
the lecture such popularity, that in Massachusetts at least 
the time and frequency of the lectures had to be made the 
topic of prescription and limitation by law. 1 ' 

One feature of Lecture-day asks, however, a moment's 
more distinct notice ; a feature which possibly added to its 
solemnity and popularity. It was the day, and lecture hour 
the time, for the infliction of the sentence of the law on per- 
sons convicted of misdemeanors against society. The stocks, 
the pillory, and the whipping-post were in close proximity to 
the meeting-house ; and the Lecture-day warnings against 
wrong-doing uttered in the latter, were often reinforced by 
practical illustration of the consequences of wrong-doing, at 
some one of the former. A few examples will answer : 

June 4, 1640. ''Nicholas Olmsteed .... is to stand 
vppon the Pillery at Hartford the next lecture day dureing the 
time of the lecture. He is to be sett on a lytle before the 
beginning & to stay thereon a litle after the end." 47 

Mch. 5, 1644. "Susan Coles for her rebellious cariedge 
toward her mistris, is to be sent to the howse of correction 
and be keept to hard labour & course dyet, to be brought 
forth the next lecture day to be publiquely corrected, and so 
to be corrected weekely vntil Order be giuen to the con- 
trary." 

" Walter Gray, for his misdemeanour in laboring to inueagle 
the affections of Mr. Hoocker's mayde, is to be publiquely 
corrected next lecture Day." 48 



40 Ante, p. 69. See also Mass. Col. Rec, i, p. 109, where it was ordered " that 
hereafter noe lecture shall begin before one a clocke in the after noone ; " a 
regulation which was afterward revoked [Ibid, i, p. 290] and this substituted : 
" Ordered that the time of beginning of lectures shalbee left to the Churches." 

* 7 Col. Rec, \, p. 50. 

^ Ibid, p. 124. 
30 



234 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

Oct. 17, 1648. "The Court adjudgeth Peter Bussaker, for 
his fillthy and prophane expressions (viz. that hee hoped to 
meete some of the Members of the Church, in hell ere long, 
and hee did not question but hee should) to be committed 
to prison, there to be kept in safe custody till the sermon, and 
then to stand the time thereof in the pillory, and after ser- 
mon to bee seuerely whipt." ib , 

It was a stern, hard age. Such spectacles of public igno- 
miny and physical suffering had their bad influence, as well 
as the possible good they were sincerely intended to serve. 
The worst and the best that can be said of the Hartford 

V 

practice in these matters is, that it was a practice general to 
the age, and there is no evidence that its coarseness or sever- 
ity was greater than was common everywhere. 

The Funeral services of early New England were severely 
austere. Lechford says of the time, about 1640/" "At Bur- 
ials, nothing is read nor any Funeral Sermon made, but all 
the neighborhood, or a good company of them come together 
by the tolling of the bell, and carry the dead solemnly to his 
grave, and there stand by him while he is buried.' , 

The first known instance of prayer at a funeral is that at 
the burial of Rev. Wm. Adams of Roxbury, August 1685, 
of which it is recorded, " Mr. Wilson, minister of Medfield, 
prayed with the company before they went to the grave." 51 
But habits gradually ameliorated. Cotton Mather writes in 
1 726:" "In many Towns of New England, the Ministers 
make agreeable Prayers with the People come together at 
the House, to attend the Funeral of the Dead. And in 
some the Ministers make a short Speech at the Grave." 



49 Ibid, p. 168. 

50 Plaine Dealing, pp. 87-88. 

51 Palfrey's N. E., iii, p. 495, note. Sewall records, January 22, 1697-8, at the 
burial of Capt. Joshua Scottow, a very important man in Massachusetts, "No 
Minister at Capt. Scottow's Funeral." 

52 Ratio, p. 117. 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 235 

The coffin, generally painted black, was borne on a bier 
carried by relays of bearers, for whom, as often for the com- 
pany generally, refreshments were prepared by the family of 
the dead person. Sometimes the nature and amount of these 
funeral supplies was matter of regulation by will. An in- 
stance is in the will of Edward Veir of Wethersfield, dated 
July 19, 1645 : "Mymynd is that there shalbe 20s, bestowed 
vppon p r uissions of wyne, bear, caks and such like, of which 
may be had for my buriall." :>3 It was long the custom for 
the women to walk foremost in the procession when one of 
their own sex was buried, and for the men to precede when 
a man was buried. 

Marriages, too, in the early period of New England, lacked 
the formality of accompanying religious ceremony- 

The Plymouth Colony people brought over with them "y e 
laudable custome of y e Low-Cuntries in which they had lived," 
where it "was thought most requisite to be performed by the 
magistrate, as being a civill thing, .... and no wher found 
in y e gospell to be layed on y" ministers as a parte of their 
office." 54 In the Bay Colony, too, pains were early taken to 
"bring it a custom by practice for magistrates to perform " 
the ceremony of marriage ; though no legislation, either there 
or at Plymouth, against the act of ministers seems to have 
been regarded as necessary. It was a power not esteemed 
inherent in the new conceived office of the ministry. It is 
said 56 the first marriage ratified by a minister in Massachu- 
setts was in 1686. 



53 Col. Pec, i, p. 464. 

54 Bradford's History of Plymouth, p. 10 1. 

55 Winthrop, i, p. 389. The Colonial sentiment on this subject found quicker 
expression in custom than the sentiment of the home country, of course; but 
in August 1653, Parliament enacted that after the 20th of September following, 
all marriages should take place "before some Justice of the Peace;" a bit of 
Puritan legislation which it is needless to say did not survive the Restoration. 

56 Proceeding's Mass. Hist. Soc, 1858-60, p. 283. 



236 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1679-1682. 

In Connecticut, also, all early marriages were ratified by 
the civil magistrate. It was not till October 11, 1694, that 
the General Court enacted the following law, empowering 
ministers to marry : 

" This Court doe for the sattisfaction of such as are con- 
scienciously desirous to be marryed by the ministers of their 
plantations doe grant the ordayned ministers of the severall 
plantations in this Colony liberty to^joyne in marriage such 
persons as are qualifyed for the same according to law." ' 

Sometimes, however, a " Solemnity, called a Contraction, a 
little before the Consummation of a Marriage was allowed of. 
A Pastor was usually employed, and a Sermon also preached 
on this Occasion." 58 How generally this custom of "Ancient 
Sponsalia " prevailed is difficult to say, r,y though Mather, writ- 
ing in 1726, speaks of it as "wholly laid aside." 

In connection with this question of marriage usages, it may 
be remarked in passing, that about the period now treated of 
and for a long time afterward, a strange relaxation of the early 
morals of the earliest New England period is observable. The 
matter became the subject of astonishingly frequent, and sin- 
gularly familiar and matter-of-fact dealing on the part of the 
churches; as is testified to by almost all old church records. 6t 
Whether a curious social custom which widely prevailed in 
New England in the intercourse of young people in process 



57 Col.Rec, iii, 136. 

58 Ratio Discipline, p. 112. 

59 Dr. J. H. Trumbull deciphers from the Ms. note-book of Henry Wolcot 
of Windsor, the heads of a sermon preached by Rev. John Warham, November 
17, 1640, "at the contracting of Benedict Alvord and Abraham Randall," who 
married, respectively Joan Newton and Mary Ware. The'text was Ephes. vi, 10- 
11, and one of the "uses" of the discourse was to teach "that the State of mar- 
riage is a war-faring condition." Trumbull's notes to Lechford's Plaine Dealijtg, 
pp. 87-88. 

60 The traces of the matters referred to, on the meager pages of the First 
Church records, are said to have caused Dr. Flawes to remark, " We have but 
one small volume of Church Records, and I wish that was burned." 



1679-1682.] EARLY CHURCH USAGES. 237 

of courtship, and which has happily long ago disappeared, 
had any considerable influence in causing the trouble referred 
to, is a point about which antiquaries are disagreed. 31 There 
can be less question, however, that the chief part of these 
instances which come under modern observation on the pages 
of ancient church memorials, belong to the half-way covenant 
membership, and not to the full communion. 

On the whole, a retrospect of the early usages of New 
England, leads to no special longing for the old times to 
come back again, nor encourages the fancy that "the former 
days were better than these." We have our evils and 
troubles. Our fathers had theirs. The sternnesses and 
severities of their days were partly the result of the hard- 
ness of their lot, and the difficulty of the work they were 
called to do. Well, if amid the softer manners and easier 
conditions of life with us, we lose not their sturdiness of 
faith and their loyalty to the truth as they conceived of it ! 



e J The custom known as Bundling, which Webster defines, " To sleep on 
the same bed without undressing — applied to the custom of man and woman, 
especially lovers, thus sleeping," was undoubtedly prevalent in New England. 
The usage has, with various modifications, existed in Scotland, Ireland, England, 
Wales, Holland, and elsewhere. It did not wholly disappear from New Eng- 
land till near the commencement of the present century. It was often defended 
as entailing no disastrous moral or social consequences ; as being the expedient 
of poverty in the times of hard labor, cold houses, and brief hours of social 
intercourse ; but there cannot be much doubt that the usage was to some extent 
the occasion of the tarnishing of the records of the New England churches, and 
of the fair names of some of the not least honored of New England families. 



CHAPTER X. 



TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE AND HIS TIMES. 

Isaac Foster was succeeded by Timothy Woodbridge. Mr. 
Woodbridge was the son of the Rev. John Woodbridge ' — 
himself son of a clergyman of the same name — who came to 
New England, in 1634, with his uncle, Rev. Thomas Parker 
of Newbury, Mass. The father, after residing some years at 
Newbury in positions of public trust, was ordained minister 
of the church at Andover, Mass., October 24, 1645. Return- 
ing, however, to England he became minister of the parish of 
Barford St. Martin's, in Wiltshire, where his sixth child, 
Timothy, was born, and was baptized January 13, 1656. 
Ejected from his parish at the time of the Episcopal Restor- 
ation, he returned to America in 1663, and became an asso- 
ciate with his uncle, Thomas Parker, in the ministry at New- 
bury. Of young Timothy, who was thus seven years of age 
when his father resumed his New England habitation, noth- 



1 Rev. John Woodbridge was born at Stanton in Wilts in 1613. His mother 
was daughter of Rev. Robert Parker. Coming to New England with his uncle 
Thomas Parker, he was town clerk in Newbury; deputy to the General Court; 
Surveyor of Arms, etc. In 1643 ne taught school at Boston. In 1639 he mar- 
ried Mercy, daughter of Gov. Thomas Dudley. In 1647 he returned to Eng- 
land and was minister of the parish of Barford St. Martin's, Wilts; from which 
at the Restoration, he was ejected. He returned to New England July 27, 1663, 
with a numerous family, and became assistant to his uncle Thomas Parker at 
Newbury, but was dismissed, November 21, 1670. He was an Assistant in the 
Mass. Colony in 1683 and 1684, and died at Newbury March 17, 1695. See 
Mather's Magnalia, i, 542-544, and Miss M. K. Talcott's article, N. E. Gen. 
and Hist. Reg., July, 1878. 



1683-1732-] TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. 239 

ing is known till his graduation at Harvard College with eight 
classmates, in 1675. The question he discussed at the grad- 
uation exercises was, "An Eclipsis solis tempore passionis 
Christi fuit naturalis ? ", respecting which he took the 
negative. 2 

It is conjectured on partial evidence that young Mr. Wood- 
bridge may, in 1682, have been exercising ministerial func- 
tions in Kittery, Maine, 3 not far from his father's home at 
Newbury. But the first authentic memorial of him in a 
clerical capacity is in an entry on the Hartford Society 4 rec- 
ords, showing that of "a rate" of eighty pounds "for the year 
'83 to be payed in '84," for Mr. VVoodbridge and " other ex- 
penses about procuring a minister. . . Mr. Woodbridges part 
of it was ^50." One hundred pounds was raised for him 
"from March '84 to March 1685," 5 and on November 24, 1684, 



2 Sibley's Harvard Graduates, ii, p. 448. 

3 Williamson's Hist. Maine, i, p. 570. J. Backus, Hist. Baptists, i, p. 503. But the 
Mr. Woodbridge who was at Kittery in 1682, was quite as likely the father 
John, as the son Timothy, if either. The only positive trace of him between 
his graduation and his appearance at Hartford in 1683, is in a note book of his 
classmate John Pike, which relates apparently to a class-meeting jollification, 
three years after graduation. "June 10, 1678, M 1 ' Timothy Woodbridge and 
M r John Emerson for Informing A Batchelour of their Indisposition to hold a 
Question in y r Commenc" 1 making their degree Rather y e Reward of stelth 
y n Learning or Virtue are (for this y r practice) Contrary to Reason & Custom 
Amerced A gallon of Sack to y e Rest of y e Classis.— As attest Johannes Pike." 
Sibley, ii, p. 454, note. 

i It may as well be noted here, once for all, that there is no remaining record 
of any action by the Church in distinction from the Society, respecting the call 
of any Pastor here, down to the call of Dr. Hawes, in 1818. 

5 A letter of Mr. Woodbridge to Cotton Mather, belonging to this year, is 
printed in Mass. Hist. Coll., xxxviii, p. 638. Its local reference, in the paucity of 
other details is interesting. " Here is little newes. Mr. Whiting and his rela- 
tions here have lately entered suit for a considerable parcell of land formerly 
belonging to his father, sold by his mother after his father's decease, and pos- 
sessed near 30 year without any molestation, and has recovered first Judgment of 
Court, but the defendants (according to the custome here) have entered a Re- 
view, so execution* is stopt. It has jogged all the attorns of the whole ant 
heap, and almost everybody seemes someways to be concerned in it. He is 
going on the morrow to ordain Mr. Nath. Chancy of Hatfield. By the begin- 
nings it is feared we may have a sickly summer this year." 



240 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

"at a meeting of the First Church and Congregation in Hart- 
ford formerly under M r Isaac Fosters ministry it was voted 
that M r Timothy Woodbridge Shall have the Summe of one 
Hundred pounds by the yeare, paid him so long as he shall 
Continue with us in the work of the ministry ; " and a com- 
mittee was empowered to "do what shall be necessary in and 
about s cl M r Woodbridge his ordination as they shall see 
Cause and God shall give opportunity." 6 

The date of the ordination, twice recorded by Mr. Wood- 
bridge in the first extant volume of records of this Church, 
was Nov. 18, 1685, but no account of proceedings on the 
occasion is preserved to us. Nor is the exact time when he 
was taken by his predecessor's widow, Mrs. Mehitable Fos- 
ter, 7 * to be her third clerical husband, certainly known ; but 
that event is believed to have been in 1684, previous to his 
formal succession to her late consort's pastorate. 

His settlement was followed, October, 1687, by the usual 
legislative appropriation* to him of two hundred acres of 
land, which was, in 1707, located and set off to him at 
" Chestnut Hill," in Killingly/ 

Mr. Woodbridge was now nearly thirty years old. The 
time at which he entered on the ministry was one of general 
religious depression, prolonging and increasing for many 
years. The demoralizing influences of the protracted wars 



No full memorandum of the expenses of the ordination is extant. But the 
Society's current account with several of its members preserves a few items : — 
Payed to Caleb Stanley for Beefe for Mr. Woodbridges ordaynation ^"3. 02. 00 

2 Bushells Wheate for the ordaynation 9. 00 

3 Bushells Barley Mault - - 13. 06 
In cash to M r Olcott for 4 lb. butter for Mr. Woodbridges ordayn- 
ation - - - - 2. 00 

Nathaniell Goodwine for a sheep for Mr. Woodbridges ordaination 18. 00 
So much pay' 1 Mrs. Gilbert for Severall things for Mr. Woodbridges 

ordaynation, - - - -3. 00. 00 

7 See ante, p. 220. 
B Conn. Col. Rec, iii, 245, and v, 77. 



1683-1732-] TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. 24 1 

with the Indians, when the Indians, were hostile, and of con- 
tact with them when they were peaceable, were manifest on 
every side. Over six hundred of the young men of New 
England had been killed in battle or murdered by the 
Indians in the two years of King Philip's war, terminated 
by Philip's death, Aug. 12, 1676, and in the war with the 
Eastern Indians which followed. Every eleventh man in 
the militia had been killed ; every eleventh house had been 
burnt ; taxes were heavy, and the Colonies were in debt. It 
is true these losses of men and habitations belonged far 
more to other Colonies than to Connecticut ; but the neces- 
sity of keeping so large a part of her militia in the field ; of 
fortifying her towns, and exposing her youth to the dangers 
and temptations of camp-life, had involved the Colony in 
difficulties, financial and moral, which were clearly manifest. 
The operation of the half-way covenant in abolishing the 
visible distinction of God's people and the people of the 
world, was widening, and some of its more indirect effects in 
generally undermining the church and the institutions of 
religion were becoming painfully actual, if not indeed clearly 
recognized. The church was being filled with people suffi- 
ciently religious to be in covenant, and to impart covenant 
privileges to their children, but not religious enough to pro- 
fess, or to have, any personal religious experiences, or to 
come to the Lord's Supper. Sins of drunkenness and 
licentiousness were astonishingly prevalent in a community 
only a few years before planted by people of devoutest man- 
ners and sternest principles. 9 



9 The records of the First Church respecting these vices among those in 
covenant, as well as public records and the testimony of printed sermons of 
the time, amply bear out the above statements. It was in 1683, the first year 
of Mr. Woodbridge's preaching in Hartford, that Samuel Stone (the son of 
Rev. Samuel, the colleague of Hooker), himself once a " preacher some yeares 
3i 



242 TH E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [16S3-1732. 

In his Election Sermon, preached at Hartford in 1674, 
Rev. James Fitch of Saybrook, had exhorted : 

" Let us call to minde the first Glory in the first planting 
of New England and of the Churches here. Let me say 
multitudes, multitudes were converted to thee, even to thee 
O Hartford, to thee O New Haven, and to thee O Windsor. 
.... Shall New England Churches be forced and spoiled of 
their peace and partly by their Brethren, yea by their chil- 
dren the rising generation ; Nay Brethren let me this day 
plead the cause of your Sister, do not so foolishly with your 
Sister : Nay, Children, let me plead the cause of your Mother, 
do not so foolishly with your Mother : but if it prove so, as 
for her where shall her shame go ? " 

And in 1686, on a similar public occasion, Rev. John 
Whiting, previously of this Church, had said : 

" Let me speak freely herein, it is sensibly certain we have 
got nothing by wandering, and therefore it is time to give it 
over: I may confidently assert in the audience of this Assem- 
bly, That scarce (if ever) people had more cause to make that 
conclusion than wee, Hos. ii, 7, / will go and return to my 
first Husband, for then it zvas better with me than now. 
Shall I say, it was better everywhere, in Family, Church, 
Town and Colony ; and better everyway, we had better peace 
and plenty, better health and harvests in former than in later 
years ; it was better for soul and body, better in Spirituals, 
less Sin ; and better in temporals, less Sorrow : O that New 
England might yet say it in good earnest, and do accord- 
ingly, / will return to my first Husband. .... Look into 
families and other societies is there not too visible and 
general a declension ; are we not turned (and that quickly 
too) out of the way wherein our fathers walked ? " 10 

Particularly Mr. Whiting inveighs against " that woful 



in severall places with generall acceptance," fell into the Little River and was 
drowned, after spending a day " first at one and then at another Taverne." See 
Appendix VII. 

10 Election Sermon, John Whiting, pp. 22, 35. 



i683-i73 2 -1 TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. 243 

trade of Indian drunkenness," in "feeding their lusts for 
filthy lucres sake, .... wringing that little they have out of 
their hands." ll 

But beside all the demoralizing influences of the border- 
life experiences of the colonists, and the perverted ecclesi- 
astical system introduced by the half-way covenant, there 
.was the distraction of continual political anxiety. The 
restoration of the monarchy in England, in 1660, was fol- 
lowed by constant attempts to restrict civil liberty there and 
in the American provinces. The charter of the city of 
London was taken away and declared forfeited. Those of 
other great English towns suffered the same fate. 

The colonists, this side of the water, looked with constant 
terror to the machinations of unscrupulous enemies at Court, 
who were urging the forfeiture of the privileges granted to 
New England. James II. succeeded his profligate brother, 
Charles, on the 6th of February, 1685 — the year Mr. Wood- 
bridge was installed Pastor at this place — and, at once, 
appointed a new government for Massachusetts, the charter 



11 Ibid, p. 29. This crime of complicity in the debauchery of the Indians 
finds frequent mention in the Election Sermons. Rev. Timothy Cutler, after 
wards Rector of Yale College, in his sermon preached at Hartford in 1717, says, 
" Doth not Drunkeness continue, yea and Increase by yearly Accession, and like 
a Mighty Torrent Bear down the Force of all the Laws that have been enacted 
against it and all the Pains that are used ? Can any Man Shut his Eyes or stop 
his Ears from Observing it among the Indians in our Towns, when it is so 
Apparent in their Staggerings to and fro, their Apish Gestures, and their 
Hideous Yellings in our Streets ? And is this all they get by Dwelling among 
us Christians, that they are made more Stupid and Polluted People than they 
were before ? " 

But it was not the Indians only who drank. The Preacher goes on to 
inquire: "And do not too many among us Stain their Profession by this 
Sin ? Can't we see Persons and Families, Estates, Healths, Bodies and Souls 
Undone by this Evil ? And it is well Worthy of your Notice, whether there 
are Sufficient Provisions for the Prevention of it. I have been the more Earn- 
est and Full upon this general Head for it looks to me like the Approaches of 
a General Deluge." pp. 49-50. 



244 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

of its Colony being declared void. Sir Edmund Andros 
landed at Boston, as Governor of New England, in Decem- 
ber 1686. He imposed restraints upon the public press, 
appointing Edward Randolph, one of the bitterest opposers 
of New England's liberties, as the licenser. He imposed 
rigorous restrictions upon marriages. He introduced the 
Episcopal service into the South Church at Boston. He 
declared all titles to property under the vacated charter 
invalid, and with "four or five of his council" 12 laid what 
taxes he thought proper. 

Connecticut's turn came a little later. Andros arrived in 
Hartford, October 31, 1687, accompanied by soldiers, and 
demanded the Charter, declaring the government dissolved. 
The Assembly debated and delayed. Governor Treat repre- 
sented to Andros the hardships of the people in planting the 
Colony, and in building up their scanty civilization in the 
wilderness, and the evil and sorrow that would be brought by 
wresting from them the Patent under which they had lived and 
on which they had rested. Debate was prolonged till night- 
fall. Candles were brought and the Charter was laid on the 
table. Crowds of excited people were gathered. Suddenly 
the lights were extinguished. When re-lighted, the Charter 
had vanished. Snugly hid, by the hand of Captain Wads- 
worth, in the hollow of the oak to which it gave its name, it 
reposed till the downfall of James and the accession of 
another English government, gave hope again for colonial 
liberty. Andros, however, took the administration of Con- 
necticut into his hands, and wrote "Finis" on the record 
book of the government, which he declared ended. 

The downfall of James and the accession of William, 
followed as it was by the glad reappearance of the Charter, 



12 Hutchinson^ i, p. 361. 



1683-1732-] TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE, 245 

on May 9th, 1689, from its hiding place in the oak, changed 
doubtless, but scarcely abated, the excitement of the public 
mind. 

The accession of William was shortly followed by declara- 
tion of war between England and France ; and war between 
England and France meant war between Canada and New 
England, and war, moreover, attended* by all the horrors of 
Indian barbarity. In 1690 Schenectady was pillaged, and 
sixty of its inhabitants put to death with savage cruelty. 
Salmon Falls suffered in the same year a similar fate. The 
whole country was tremulous with fear. A similar destiny 
might overtake any frontier settlement. All the males in 
Connecticut, except aged and infirm, were ordered on watch, 
by turns. 13 

These measures for home defence were followed by re- 
peated military expeditions in cooperation with the military 
of the other Colonies, to the frontiers of New York and 
Massachusetts extending through several years, entailing 
large expense and hardship. 

Meantime, it is apparent from various sources 14 that more 
than usual severity of flood and storm, and prevalence of 
disease, and scantiness of crops, marked this whole period ; 
so that the twenty concluding years of the seventeenth 
century were among the gloomiest passages of New England 
history. 

Against all these adverse influences, the best men of the 
colonies, in Church and State, made what head they could. 
In Massachusetts, the Court, at the request of the Elders, 
called a Synod, which met Sept. 10-20, 1679, and which is 



13 Col. Rec, iv, p. 18. 

11 See Proclamations of Fast Days in the various Colonies (specimens of 
which Cojin. Col. Rec, iii, p. 46, iii, p. 131-132) ; Election Sermons ; Sewall's 
Diary ; Mass. Hist. Coll., v, etc. 



246 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

known as the Reforming Synod, to take the alarming con- 
dition of religious matters into consideration. Among the 
evils which the Synod pointed out 15 were "great and visible 
decay of the power of Godliness amongst many professors, 
. . pride in respect of apparel, . . oaths and imprecations 
in ordinary discourse, . . Sabbath breaking," neglect of 
"discipline extended "toward children of the covenant, . . 
lawsuits, . . intemperance, the heathenish and idolatrous 
practice of health drinking, . . breaches of the seventh 
commandment, . . mixed dancing, light behaviour, unlawful 
gaming, . . oppression, . . incorrigibleness under lesser 
judgments." 

In order to redress these evils, the Synod recommended, 
among other things, a re-affirmation of the "faith and order 
in the gospel . . expressed in the [Cambridge] Platform 
of discipline;" carefulness that none "be admitted to com- 
munion in the Lord's supper without making a personal and 
publick profession of faith and repentance;" the stricter 
observance of "discipline;" the more adequate supply of 
church officers, "there being in most congregations only one 
teaching officer for the burden of the whole congregation ; 
. . solemn and explicit renewal of covenant;" fostering 
of "schools of learning," and an endeavor "to cry mightily 
unto God both in ordinary and extraordinary manner that he 
would be pleased to rain down righteousness upon us." 16 

Here in Connecticut, religious endeavor took other forms. 
Moved by the Elders, the Assembly, at its session in May 
1680, appointed a Fast to be held in June, and, at the same 
time, recommended 

"To the ministry of the Colony to cattechise the youth in 



15 Magnalia, ii, pp. 273-277. 
10 Ibid, pp. 278-282. 



I683-I73 2 -] TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. 247 

their respective place that are under twenty yeares of age in 
the Assembly of Divines Cattechisme or some other orthodox 
cattechisme on the Sabboth Dayes," and also "recommended 
to the ministers to keepe a lecture weekly . . . . in each 
county as they shall agree." 17 

These proclamations were repeated often ; that of October 
1683, being especially earnest in declaring it 

" Evident to all whoe observe the footsteps of Divine prov- 
dence that the dispensation of God toward his poore wilder- 
ness people have been very solemne, awf ull and speakeing for 
many yeares past, and perticularly toward o r selves in this 
colony the present yeare by reason of generall sickness in 
most places and more than ordinary mortality in some, as 
allso excessive rains and floods," and also in the " bereave- 
ment of so many churches of a settled ministry." ltJ 

These efforts of magistrates and ministers were not with- 
out some considerable measure of benefit. The recommend- 
ations of the Court, in 1680 especially, resulted in "county 
meetings of the ministers every week " for years after, and 
seem also to have done much to prepare the way for the 
more organized ecclesiastical establishment of the future. 1 " 
Something we need not hesitate to call revivals of religion, 
however imperfect the standard of estimate, from time to 
time appeared. 

Such an experience came to this Hartford Church in the 
winter and spring of 1695-6. It was at a period of general 
alarm on account of Indian disturbances along the Con- 
necticut river in Hampshire County in Massachusetts. 
The crops of the previous season had been cut off ; of 
which one indication remains upon the Society's record of 
December 26, 1695, "Mr. Woodbridge abated by reason of 



17 Col.Rec, iii, pp. 64-65. 
1S Ibidy pp. 131-132. 
19 Trumbull, i, p. 480. 



248 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

the badness of the year Ten pounds of his sallery." The 
community was obviously under unusual religious impression; 
so that on Sunday, February 23, 1696 — doubtless in the 
presence of the gathered congregation — sixty-eight persons, 
thirty-three males and thirty-five females, gave assent to the 
Covenant."" On Sunday, March 8th, eighty-three more, 
thirty-nine males and forty-four females, took the same Cov- 



20 The Covenant which was on this occasion subscribed to, is the earliest of 
the forms which are preserved in the history of this Church. It is as follows : 
" We do solemnly in y e presence of God and this Congregation avouch God in 
Jesus Christ to be our God one God in three persons y e Father y e Son & y e 
Holy Ghost & y l we are by nature childr 11 of wrath & y* our hope of Mercy with 
God is only thro' y e righteousnesse of Jesus Christ apprehended by faith & we 
do freely give up ourselves to y e Lord to walke in communion with him in y e 
ordinances appointed in his holy word & to yield obedience to all his comands 
& submit to his governm. 1 & wheras to y e great dishon r of God, Scandall of Re- 
ligion & hazard of y e damnation of Souls, y e Sins of drunkenness & fornication 
are Prevailing amongst us we do Solemly engage before God this day thro his 
grace faithfully and conscientiously to strive against those Evills and y e temp- 
tations that May lead thereto." This is in Mr. Woodbridge's hand. But this 
form of Covenant was probably a new one, drawn up by him in view of the 
then prevalent interest and the then " Prevailing " sins; for his record for ten 
years previous shows, from the earliest date of his ministry, the clear distinction 
between the Covenanting and Full Communion members. And it is the more 
strange that Dr. Hawes (in his Tribute to the Me7nory of the Pilgrims, p. 122) 
should have fallen into Dr. Trumbull's error of saying that the half-way- 
covenant was "not adopted by a single church in this State till 1696"; when 
this record book of his own Church, on every page of ten years antecedent to 
that time, shows the contrary. See, also, ante, pp. 204 and 207 and notes thereto. 

The Covenant owned in the days of Mr. Woodbridge's two successors, Wads- 
worth and Dorr, reads thus : " You do solemnly in the presence of God and 
before this Congregation avouch god in Christ, to be your god, one god in 3 
persons, father, son and holy ghost and professing that you believe the Holy 
Scriptures to be y e Word of god you promise thro y e assistance of divine grace 
to make them the rule of your life, and acknowledging yourself by nature a Child 
of wrath, your hope of mercy with god is only thro y e righteousness of Christ 
apprehended by faith, you do also give up yourself (and yours) to the Lord, 
promising to Submitt unto the rule and government of Christ in his Church." 
This is in the hand of Rev. Daniel Wadsworth. The only variation of this 
formula {in Wadsworth's and Dorr's time, however it may have been before) in 
the case of the Full Communion membership, is the incorporation into it of the 
promise "carefully to observe and attend upon y Ordinances and Institutions 
of the gospel." 



I6S3-I73 2 -] TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. 249 

enant. So on Sunday, March 15th, twenty-eight others; 
March 22d, twelve more; and April 5th, three; in all one hun- 
dred and ninety-four, an equal number of each sex. It is, 
however, a painful commentary on the imperfection, perhaps 
of the reviving itself, and certainly of the religious system 
under which it took place, that on the Sunday following the 
last above mentioned, when those admitted to 1 ' full commun- 
ion " as the fruits of this winter's awakening were received, 
they were but twelve. 

No equivalent religious movement seems to mave marked 
any subsequent year of Mr. Woodbridge's long pastorate, 
though evidence of several lesser stirrings of the religious 
pulse remain; but always with much the same disproportion in 
result between those who " owned the covenant" and those 
admitted to "full communion." Three hundred and sixteen 
persons were admitted to full communion, and four hundred 
and seventy-eight owned the covenant in the pastorate of 
Mr. Woodbridge. 

Six deacons appear to have been chosen to office during 
Mr. Woodbridge's pastorate, three in 1 691, and three in 1712. 
The election of the first three was apparently a matter of 
much deliberation. On March 1 1, 1686, there was " proposed 
to y e Church & left to their consideration y e choice of two fit 
persons for Deacons out of these proposed, viz, Paul Peck 
sen 1 ', Joseph Eason Jun 1 , Daniel Prat sen 1 ', Nathaniell Good- 
wine sen 1 ", & John Richards." Who "proposed" these can- 
didates is uncertain, whether the Pastor or the brethren. 
But action was not taken till April 23, 1691, when "Paul 
Peck sen 1 , Joseph Easton & Joseph Olmstead were chosen 
Deacons." Parents, however, had their trials then as now. 
At the same meeting when Paul Peck, Sr., was chosen dea- 
con, Paul Peck, Jr., was "judged incorrigible in his sin of 
3 2 



250 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

drunkenness," and was excommunicated. No record of for- 
mality about the choice of John Sheldon, John Shepard, and 
Thomas Richards remains. 

From the beginning of the Colony to the opening years of 
1700, the settlers on the east side of the Connecticut River 
at Hartford had attended worship, paid their church rates, 
and buried their dead on this side. In May 1694 they peti- 
tioned the General Court to have the "liberty of a minister" 
among themselves. The Court commended the subject to 
the consideration of the First and Second Societies in Hart- 
ford, where the east-siders worshiped, expressing the hope 
of a " good agreement " in the premises. 21 The Societies, on 
the 5th of October, "considered the motion," declared they 
" prize the good company " of their east-side friends, and 
" cannot without their help well and comfortably carry on or 
mayntaine the ministry in the two societies here;" remind 
them that the difficulty they complained of in coming over 
the river was one " they could not but forsee before they set- 
tled where they are;" but, all things considered, they would 
consent, provided 

"That those of the good people of the east side that desire 
to continue with us of the west side shall so doe, and that all 
the land on the east that belongs to any of the people on the 
west side shall pay to the ministry of the west side ; and that 
all of the land of the west side shall pay to the ministry of 
the west side though it belongs to the people of the east 
side." 

This not very cordial permission the Court ratified, 22 and 
granted liberty to procure an orthodox minister on the east 
side of the river. The east-side people could not at once 
procure their minister and set up their establishment, and 

21 Col. Records, \v, p. 127. 

22 Col. Rec, iv, pp. 136-137. 



1683-1732-] TIMOTHY WOODBRTDGE. 25 I 

more or less friction ensued. The First Society on Decem- 
ber 27, 1699, tried to ameliorate matters by voting that "the 
Inhabitants belonging to the Society on the East Side the 
Great River shall pay Ten pounds of the Hundred pounds 
granted to Mr. Woodbridge and no more." 23 

But by 1702, the east-siders having made strenuous efforts 
to build a meeting-house, and to raise money for the clerical 
services of Rev. John Read, who temporarily served them in 
the ministry, the Court peremptorily interposed and ordered 
that all persons on the east side should pay to the young 
society there, " any former lawe or usage to the contrary not- 
withstanding." Certain persons who had been accustomed 
to come over to the west side did not like this, andpetitioned 
the Court to be allowed to pay to the west side as formerly. 
Two of them, Solomon Andrews and Thomas Warren, re- 
fused to pay their east-side church rates ; and the east-side 
collectors levied" on Andrews' brass-kettle, and a horse belong- 
ing to Warren. Time, however, settled the controversy, and 
March 30, 1705, saw the ordination of Mr. Samuel Wood- 
bridge — a nephew of Timothy, of the First Church — over 
the church and society of East Hartford. The date of the 
church-organization as a body, ecclesiastically distinct from 
the First Church, it seems impossible exactly to determine. 

Mr. Woodbridge was a large and strong man and lived to 
good old age, but a considerable part of the year 1701, and 
the whole of the year 1702, he was absent from Hartford, 
apparently ill, in Boston. The Society, on January 2, 1702 : 

" Voated that when Mr. Timothy Woodbridg shall Judg 
himselfe to be able & Capable of Travailing home from Bos- 
ton (where he now is) that then there shall be sent Two men 
to Boston .... to wayt vppon Mr. Woodbridge and help 
him home." 



•J3 ]?i rs t Society Records. 



252 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD, [1683-1732. 

On the 19th of the following November, Mr. Woodbridge 
being still absent, the Society appointed 

" Mr. Willys, John Haynes, Capt. Stanly, Capt. Nicols, 
Capt Wadsworth and Lieut Joseph Tallcott a Committy to 
wright a Suitable Letter and signe it in the Name of the 
Society to their Revd pastor Mr. Timothy Woodbridg to 
Condole with him under the sorrowfull sircumstances whith 
the providence of God hath Layed him vnder By the sepa- 
ration made By his absence from them." 

This procedure the Church seconded by a similar vote 
empowering Mr. Willys, Captain Stanly, Captain Cooke, and 
Mr. Tallcott, to "wright a Louing and suitable Letter" to 
Mr. Woodbridge " to desire his speedy Returne to his work 
in the ministry." January 5, 1703, arriving, and the Pastor 
still absent, the Society 

" Made Choice off Mr. John Haynes & Capt Nicholls or 
either of them with some other Suitable person to goe with 
them as soone as possibly they Could to desire the Rev. Mr. 
Timothy Woodbridg to Returne .... and to accompany 
him home from Boston." 

February found him back, for on the 23d of that month 
the Society 

" Did grant to Mr. Timothy Woodbridg as a gratuity and 
ffree guift the sum of fforty pounds in Countrey pay .... 
and the Horse-Saddle and Bridle Bought att Boston to bring 
the s d Mr. Woodbridg Home." 23 



26 "Capt. Nichols and Mr. Ephraim Turner" finally went for Mr. Wood- 
bridge, and were paid by the Society for the service two shillings a day " for 21 
days besides the Sabaths." They paid at Boston ^"5 ias\ for the " Horse Bri- 
dle & Sadie" for Mr. Woodbridge's use. 

The only clue to the nature and degree of Mr. Woodbridge's disability is, 
perhaps, a statement in a letter of Judge Sewall to Rev. James Pierpont of 
New Haven, dated at Boston, October 29, 1701, and certain entries in Sevvall's 
diary. In the letter he says " Mr. Timothy Woodbridge remains here lame by 
reason of a humor fallen into his right leg." In his diary he speaks of dining, 
on October 1, 1702, "with Mr. Increase Mather and Mr. Tim Woodbridge;" 



1683-1732-] TIMOTHY WOODBRIDGE. 253 

Meantime the pulpit was supplied, more or less regularly, 
"att Thirty shillings y e Sabath, . . Mr. Nathaniell Hub'- 
berd " 2i being paid " ffor preathing elleaven Sabaths, . . 
Mr. John Reede 25 ffor preathing Two Sabaths, and Mr. 
Ephrim Woodbridg a6 ffor preathing 14 Sabaths, . . for all 
which sums those Three gentlemen have partiqueler ac- 
coumpts." 

There is ample evidence that Mr. Woodbridge occupied 
a commanding position as a minister in the Colony. 
He drafted 2T the Address to King William, found in Col. 



and says that on " Jany. 27 [1703] Mr. Tim Woodbridge Prayd at the opening 
of the Court at Charleston ; but dines not with us." Woolsey's Historical 
Discourse, p. 91, and Mass. Hist. Coll., xxx, pp. 66-72. 

24 Nathaniel Hubbard was, in all probability, the grandson of William Hub- 
bard, the historian. Such a grandson graduated at Harvard in 1698 (a suita- 
ble date for the service in question), but he became a lawyer and judge in Mas- 
sachusetts and died in 1748. Perhaps he, like John Read, essayed preaching 
awhile. No other Nathaniel Hubbard seems to fit the case. 

25 John Read or Reed was a man of eccentric character and history. He 
was a native of Connecticut, born about 1680; graduated at Harvard College 
1697 ; preached at Waterbury in 1699, but declined settlement there; was ad- 
mitted to full communion in the First Church of Hartford November 12, 1697, 
and awhile after preached for a considerable period at East Hartford. In 1703 
he was preaching at Stratford, then studied law, and was admitted to the bar 
October 6, 1708. He purchased lands of the Indians between Fairfield and Dan- 
bury, and became involved in extended litigations. He removed to Boston in 
1722, and rose to high distinction in his profession. Was several times chosen 
Attorney General of the Province of Massachusetts. James Otis called him 
" the greatest common lawyer this country ever saw." He died in February, 
1749, and was buried in King's Chapel, Boston. His wife was Ruth Talcott, 
daughter of Col. John Talcott of Hartford, and sister of Governor Joseph 
Talcott. See Knapp's Biographical Sketches, and Sketch of John Read, by 
George B. Reed, Boston, 1879. 

S6 Ephraim Woodbridge was nephew of Rev. Timothy; born 1680, graduated 
at Harvard College 1701, became minister at Groton in 1704, died December 

i, 1725- 

' 2 ~ The accomplished editor of the first three volumes of Conn. Col. Records 
gives the draughtmanship of this paper (iii, p. 254) to John Aliyn. But the 
present writer joins with Mr. C. J. Hoadly, State Librarian, in thinking the 
writing is not Allyn's, and is Woodbridge's. There is collateral evidence of 
Mr. Woodbridge's concernment in the public events then occurring, which ren- 
ders his action in this case the more probable. 



254 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

Records, iii, p. 463-6 and in Trumbull's History of Connecticut, 
i,*p. 537-40. He was appointed by the General Assembly in 
May 1703, in association with Rev. Gurdon Saltonstall, "to 
draw up the addresse to her Majestie and the letter to Lord 
Cornbury ; " 28 he was, in 1704, one of a board of arbitration 
between the Treasurer of the Colony and Wm. Goodwin and 
Saml. Steele, " constables of Hartford for the year 1698 ;" 29 
and in 1705 was one of a " Comittee in behalfe of the govern- 
ment to consider of the complaints laid against this Colonie 
in England, and to furnish our agent in England with what 
directions or informations they can in order to answer said 
complaints." ' He preached the Election Sermon before 
the Assembly on May 12, 1698, and again on May 11, 1724, 
the latter of which was printed, 31 and is written in a style 
of more than ordinarily modern tone. 

"The Doctrine" of the discourse "is That the Lord Jesus 
Christ doth actually reign on the Earth. He hath from the 
time of the Fall of Man exerted His Mediatorial power, and 
the whole world doth dayly Partake of the Benefits and 
Effects of it." 

In the course of his remarks the preacher, who at the time 
of delivering this sermon was an aged man, says : 

" I must recommend to Religious and Compassionating 
care the encouraging and supporting the Education of the 
Indian Children. There is such a successful beginning made 
that it is matter of Admiration to those that have enquired 
into it, and the very Indians have expressed themselves to 
this Effect, ' that there appears the Hand of God in it! " 

This reference is probably to the school at Farmington, 
where the number of Indian pupils was " sometimes fifteen 



w Col. Rec, iv, p. 428. 
29 Ibid, p. 479. 

80 Ibid, p. 520. 

81 N. London, T. Green, 1727, sm. 8vo, p. 33. 



I683-I73 2 -] WOODBRIDGE AND THE COLLEGE. 255 

or sixteen," 32 and to the support of which the Colony in 
1733-4 and 6, made appropriations "for dieting of the Indian 
lads at 4 shillings per week." 

Possibly something of Mr. Woodbridge's interest in this 
matter of Indian-children education may have been derived 
from observation in his own household. On the 10th of 
August 171 1 he baptized an Indian boy, apparently appren- 
ticed to him, and made this entry in the Church record : 

Baptized "John Waubin my Indian servant. I publickly 
engaged that I would take care he should be brought up in 
the Christian Religion. T. Woodbridge." 33 

Educational interests seem always to have had a large 
share in Mr. Woodbridge's concern, and his loyalty at once 
to the College and to Hartford led to one of the most picto- 
rial and perhaps one of the most troublesome passages of 
his history. 

The design of a College in the Colony had been early con- 
cieved. The distance of Harvard and the difficulty of travel, 



32 Trumbull, i, p. 469. 

33 In Mr. Woodbridge's will, dated April 1, 1732, he bequeaths " the Improve- 
ment of John Waubin during the time he is bound to serve me." As this was 
within a few months of twenty-one. years later, John Waubin must have been a 
very small Indian at baptism, or the indentures must some way have been 
renewed. 

It may here be noticed that Mr. Woodbridge had a variegated household. 
Added to the Indian element in it, was another of a still different color, as is 
witnessed by at least two transactions on the Hartford town records. One 
bears date July 15, 1723: " We Timothy Woodbridge and Abigail his wife in 
Consideration of y e sum of fifty-Six pounds of Good and Lawful money . . 
have bargained, Sold, Sett over and Delivered in plain and open Market . . 
unto Elizabeth Wilson a Negro Boy named Thorn about thirteen years of age." 
The other is dated July 16, 1723, and declares that, "I Elizabeth Wilson . . 
in Consideration of y e Natural Love and Parental affection I have and do bear 
toward my daughter Abigail Woodbridge . . have Given, Sold,. Sett over 
and delivered to my said daughter Abigail Woodbridge . . a Negro l'oy 
named Tom, to Have and to Hold . . as her own proper Estate, Provided 
that my said Daughter when she comes to dispose of said Negro, shall give him 
to one of her sons, as she Shall think best to bestow Such a Gift upon." 



256 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

not to speak of certain jealousies between Connecticut and 
Massachusetts — whereof sensible consciousness survives to 
this day — had led to the frequent pondering of the problem 
of a College nearer by. In ministerial circles this desire 
indicated itself, in 1698, in " sundry meetings and consulta- 
tions," at which it was proposed " that a College should be 
erected by a general Synod " of the Connecticut churches. 
As a result of these consultations, " ten of the principal 
ministers of the Colony were nominated " by the " lesser 
Conventions of ministers, . . and in private Conversa- 
tion . . as Trustees or Undertakers . . to found erect 
and govern a College." S4 These gentlemen were James 
Noyes of Stonington, Israel Chauncy of Stratford, Thomas 
Buckingham of Saybrook, Abraham Pierson of Killingworth, 
Samuel Mather of Windsor, Samuel Andrew of Milford, 
Timothy Woodbridge of Hartford, James Pierpont of New 
Haven, Noadiah Russell of Middletown, and Joseph Webb 
of Fairfield. Tradition has it that these men met at Bran- 
ford in 1700, and laid a number of books upon a table, say- 
ing : " I give these books for the founding of a College in 
this Colony." Mr. Russell of Branford was appointed Libra- 
rian. A charter was procured from the General Assembly 
on October 9, 1701, and the Trustees, meeting at Saybrook 
on the nth of November following, made choice of Rev. 
Abraham Pierson as Rector, and added Rev. Samuel Rus- 
sell to the number of the Trustees to complete the maximum 
of eleven prescribed by the charter. The Trustees at this 
meeting indicated their desire that Saybrook should be the 
location of the College, but till the Rector could remove 
thither the scholars should be instructed at or near the Rec- 
tor's house at Killingworth. In point of fact the Rector did 

4 Clap's Hist. Yale College, pp. 2-3. 



1683-1732.] WOODBRIDGE AND THE COLLEGE. 257 

not remove, and the College remained at Killingworth till 
Mr. Pierson's death, March 5, 1707. The first Commence- 
ment exercises were, however, held at Saybrook in 1702. 

On Mr. Pierson's death, Rev. Samuel Andrews of Milford, 
was chosen Rector, and the senior class was removed to his 
town, to be under his immediate care ; while the other 
classes were removed to Saybrook, the place originally 
selected as the location of the College. Here at Saybrook, 
under the instruction of "two Tutors," with "Students about 
twenty in number," the College remained "about seven 
years." 35 

At the meeting of the Trustees, at Saybrook, on the 4th 
of April, 1716, the students entered complaints of inadequate 
instruction, and inconvenience in their accommodations. 
They alleged they could be just as well taught, and much 
more conveniently situated, nearer their own homes. The 
Trustees debated the matter, without arriving at any fixed 
conclusion; but, as a measure of temporary expedience, 
allowed the scholars, till the next commencement, to go to 
such places "as should best suit their inclinations." 5 Four- 
teen of them inclined to Wethersfield, where they put them- 
selves under the tutorship of Rev. Elisha Williams ; thirteen 
went to New Haven, and four stayed at Saybrook till a 
scare about the small-pox drove them to East Guilford. 

But the disquiet of the students, indicated in the action of 
the April meeting, had deeper causes than were expressed. 
The real question was the permanent location of the College. 
The institution, though graduating fifty-three students be- 
tween 1702 and 1716, was obviously in a "broken" state, 
and far from happily situated, with a Rector and senior class 



35 Ibid, p. 1 5. 

36 Trumbull, ii, 23. 

33 



258 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732.- 

in one place, and two Tutors and the lower class in another 
place, forty miles away. In this state of affairs, the site of 
the College interested and divided the public mind. Some 
were for continuing it at Saybrook, others for removing it to 
New Haven, while still a third party in interest were for 
bringing it to Hartford or Wethersfield. 

Returning from the April meeting in 17 16, Mr. Woodbridge 
and Mr. Buckingham, of the Second Church — who had, it is 
believed, been chosen a Trustee in 171 5, to fill the place 
made vacant by the death of Rev. James Pierpont of New 
Haven — took the certainly rather extraordinary step of lay- 
ing a petition before the General Assembly, in May, setting 
forth the " present declining and unhappy circumstances " of 
the school ; suggesting the removal of it to Hartford ; and 
proposing several arguments why such a removal would be 
expedient — as that " Hartford is more in the centre of the 
Colony ; " that " six or seven hundred pounds " had been 
subscribed for the purpose ; and that students of " the 
neighboring Province" of Massachusetts had been prom- 
ised. 37 The Assembly summoned the Trustees to consider 
the matter. Some appeared, and persuaded the legislature 
to postpone consideration of Mr. Woodbridge's and Mr. 
Buckingham's petition until the Trustees held their regular 
annual meeting. They met at Saybrook, Sept. 12th, and 
not being able to agree, adjourned to New Haven, to Oct. 
17th. 

At this meeting in October, eight Trustees were present ; 
five of them voted to remove the College to New Haven ; 
one favored its continuance at Saybrook, but, if removed, 
chose New Haven as the site ; Mr. Woodbridge and Mr. 
Buckingham voted for Wethersfield. Two Trustees were 



37 Col. Rec, v, 550-551. 



1683-1732-] WOODBRIDGE AND THE COLLEGE. 259 

absent; one. was bed-ridden, the other was known to be in 
favor of New Haven. 

The majority was clearly for the change. Two Tutors 
were elected, and measures undertaken to erect a building at 
New Haven. The senior class was put under the instruc- 
tion of Rev. Mr. Noyes, minister of the church there. But 
the students participated in the divided public sentiment, and 
nearly half of them remained at Wethers field, and a few at 
Saybrook. The agitation continued. A public meeting at 
Hartford was held December 18th, 171 6, and resolutions 
adopted calling on the representatives in the Assembly to 
appeal from the action of the Trustees, to the legislature. 
In April following, the Trustees, by a vote of six, re-enacted 
their choice of New Haven, made the October before. 
Mr. Woodbridge and Mr. Buckingham, backed by the local 
sentiment about them, presented a remonstrance to the 
Assembly, in May, declaring the transferrence of the College 
to New Haven to be irregular and illegal, and in violation of 
certain agreements made among the Trustees. Sundry in- 
habitants of Hartford seconded the memorials of the two 
dissatisfied remonstrants. The Assembly disagreed on the 
subject of the memorial. The lower House voted to call the 
Trustees before them to give account of the transfer; the 
upper House negatived the proposal. 38 Things drifted on 
till October, when the subject came up again in the Assem- 
bly, "the lower House in something of a passion," 39 calling 
the Trustees before them, and enquiring on what authority 
they had "ordered a collegiate school built at New Haven." 
The same branch of the Assembly also proceeded to vote on 
the question of a locality for the College, as if it had not 



Dr. Woolsey's Historical Discourse, p. 18. 
Ibid, p. 19. 



2 6o THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

already been legally determined, and as if it were a matter 
under their control ; Saybrook having six votes, Middletown 
thirty-five, and New Haven thirty-two. The upper House, 
influenced, it is believed, largely by Governor Saltonstail, 
declared that the matter had already been legally settled, 
and that the objections of the remonstrating Trustees were 
frivolous. Ultimately it appears, from a contemporary man- 
uscript, that the upper House, after listening to argument on 
the subject from Mr. Davenport of Stamford, agreed, unani- 
mously, to recommend the Trustees to go on at New Haven ; 
and the lower House, dividing on the question, voted in the 
same way by a majority of six; so "the up river party had 
their will in having the school settled by the Generall 
Court, though sorely against their will at New Haven." 4 

Partly to compensate the "up river party" for their disap- 
pointment about the College, the Assembly voted an appro- 
priation of ;£8oo, to be raised by sale of public lands, for an 
Assembly and Court House at Hartford. 

The up-river party were hard to console, however. In the 
May following, the lower House of the Assembly voted on the 
matter once again, proposing that the College commence- 
ments be held alternately at New Haven and at Wethers- 
field till the place of the school should be fully determined. 
The upper House voted that it was determined already. 

This was the last of the struggle, so far as the legislature 
was concerned. But the two Hartford Trustees were still 
militant. Commencement day came. President Clap says, 41 
on " Sept. 12, 1718, there was a Splendid Commencement at 
New Haven." He rehearses in glowing terms the grandeur 
of the occasion, the dignity of the personages present, the 



40 Ibid, p. 20. See also Col. Rec, vi, 30, and note. 
45 History Yale College, pp. 24-25. 



1683-1732-] WOODBRIDGE AND THE COLLEGE. 2 6l 

nobleness of the addresses in celebration of the endowment 
given by Elihu Yale, and concludes the narrative of the 
event by the statement that "the Honorable Governor 
Saltonstall was pleased to Grace and Crown the whole 
Solemnity with an elegant Latin Oration." 

President Clap then goes on to say, that on the same day 
when these august proceedings were in progress at New 
Haven, 

" Something like a Commencement was carried on at 
Wethersfield before a large Number of Spectators ; five 
Scholars who were Originally of the Class which now took 
their Degrees at New Haven performed publick Exercises ; 
the Rev. Mr. Woodbridge acted as Moderator, and he and 
Mr. Buckingham and other Ministers present signed Certifi- 
cates, that they judged them to be worthy of the Degree of 
Batchelor of Arts ; these Mr. Woodbridge delivered to them 
in a formal Manner in the Meeting-House, which was com- 
monly taken and represented as giving them their Degrees.'' 42 

Obviously the up river party was a good deal excited. 
The general feeling of the community seems to have sup- 
ported the two dissentient Trustees in their course. The 
following year, 1719, Mr. Woodbridge and Mr.* Buckingham 
were chosen town-representatives to the Assembly. Mr. 
Woodbridge prayed at the opening of the session on the 
14th of May; but on the 18th an ''information" was made 
by a down-river member that he had " charged the Honora- 
ble the Governor and Council in that matter of Saybrook 
with the breach of the 6 th and 8 th commandments." 

The next day the House voted that the charge was suffi- 
ciently sustained to exclude him from his seat as a member. 
But on Mr. Woodbridge's presentation of the case, in a paper 
signed by him, the lower House acquitted him of the 



Ibid, pp. 27-28. 



2 62 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

charge of defaming his Majesty's government. The upper 
House apparently hesitated, and sent down a message 
appointing a further hearing of Mr. Woodbridge's defence. 
Here the track is lost, and the after progress of the affair is 
unknown. 43 

What phase of that " matter at Saybrook " it was, which 
prompted Mr. Woodbridge's irreverent speech — whether the 
whole matter of removal, or the particular transaction of the 
December previous, when the forcible carrying off the books 
of the College from Saybrook was the occasion of a public 
riot — it is perhaps impossible to say. There is no doubt 
that Mr. Woodbridge shared to some extent the excited 
feelings of the Saybrook people, who so far resisted the 
removal of the library, that the doors of the building where 
the volumes were kept had to be broken in ; the wagons 
conveying them were assailed ; bridges along the road were 
torn down, " and two hundred and fifty of the most valuable 
books and sundry Papers of Importance were lost." 44 

Gradually, however, the excitement abated. The Trustees 
of the College chose Mr. Williams of Wethersfield a Tutor, 
and opened the way for the regular enrollment in the class 
list of the "five scholars" who had figured in the "something 
like a Commencement at Wethersfield." Dr. Trumbull sug- 
gests that the two rebellious members of the Board were too 
" important characters " to have their behavior in the affair 
treated as severely as it might otherwise have been. 45 And 
ultimately, President Clap records, 

" The Rev. Mr. Woodbridge and Mr. Buckingham became 
very friendly to the College at New Haven. The Trustees 



43 Col. Rec, vi, p. 106. 

44 Woolsey's Historical Address, p. 22, and Clap's History, pp. 28-29. 

45 Trumbtill, ii, p. 30. 



1683-1732-] WOODBRIDGE AND THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM. 263 

in Testimony of their Friendship and Regard to Mr. Wood- 
bridge chose him Rector pro Tempore, and he accordingly 
moderated and gave Degrees at the Commencement Anno 

1723." - 

Coincident in point of time with much of Air. Wood- 
bridge's effort in behalf of the College was his activity in 
another very important Connecticut interest — the establish- 
ment and maintenance of the Consociational system. 

The depressed and disorderly state of religious affairs 
which prevailed throughout the Colony about the time of 
Mr. Woodbridge's accession to the pastorate, and which had 
already been made the subject of various remedial experi- 
ments of a legislative and ecclesiastical character, still con- 
tinued. It was matter of common recognition, and among 
the best men, of sorrow and alarm. Inevitably it became 
the topic of conference and suggestion whenever ministers 
assembled. But in those days of difficult intercommunica- 
tion between the scattered churches of the province, the 
Trustees of the College were about the only body of men 
clearly representative of the Colony at large who had occa- 
sion or opportunity to meet. It was only natural, therefore, 
that the most influential proposal to attempt the redress of 
existing evils should originate with them ; as also that when 
the endeavor was undertaken, they again should in large 
measure be its instruments. At a meeting of the College 
Trustees at Guilford, March 17, 1703, there was prepared "a 
Circular Letter to the Ministers, proposing to have a general 



46 Clap, p. 29. This was the Commencement after the Rev. Timothy Cutler 
was, by vote of the Trustees, " excused from all further services as Rector of 
Yale College," by reason of his having avowed Episcopalian sentiments. On 
which occasion, also, the Trustees voted that all future Rectors or Tutors in the 
College should subscribe the Saybrook Confession, and "particularly give satis- 
faction to them of the soundness of their faith in opposition to Arminian and 
Prelatical corruptions." 



264 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

Synod of all the Churches in the Colony of Connecticut to 
give their joint Consent to the Confession of Faith after the 
Example of the Synod in Boston in 1680/' How in detail 
the recommendation was met by the ministers cannot, per- 
haps, be determined ; though President Clap, who is the 
authority for the proposal, says it was " universally accept- 
able." But in May of 1708, the General Assembly, being in 
session at Hartford, after rehearsing how they were "sensi- 
ble of the defects of the discipline of the churches of this 
government arising from the want of a more explicite assert- 
ing of the rules given for that end in the holy scriptures, 
from which would arise a firm establishment amongst our- 
selves, a good and regular issue in cases subject to ecclesi- 
astical discipline, glory to Christ our head and edification to 
its members," proceeded to " ordein and require " the minis- 
ters and " such messengers as the churches to which they 
belong shall see cause to send with them," to meet in their 
respective county towns on the last Monday in the following 
June, and there to " consider and agree upon those methods 
and rules for the management of ecclesiastical discipline 
which by them shall be judged agreeable and conformable to 
the word of God," and to appoint delegates, representative of 
their county assemblies, to meet at Saybrook at the " next 
Commencement," to " compare results " and draw up a 
general "form of ecclesiastical discipline," to be reported 
to the Assembly for consideration in October. 48 

The procedures of the county meetings do not survive to 
us, but President Clap states, that " the churches in the 
several Counties met . . and assented to the Westminster 
or Savoy Confessions, and drew up some Rules of Ecclesias- 



47 Clap's Hist. Yale Co/., p. 12. 

48 Col. Rec,v, p. 51. 



16S3-173 2 -] WOODBRIDGE AND THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM. 265 

tical Discipline. . . Then each Council chose six Dele- 
gates, that is three Ministers and three Messengers, to meet 
in a general Synod." If this statement of President Clap is 
correct, and he certainly wrote at a period when knowledge 
on the matter was easily accessible, there hardly seems to be 
adequate foundation for the suggestion of a very eminent 
later historian, that the Synod which convened at Saybrook 
was not a properly representative body of the forty churches 
of Connecticut. 49 

The constituent bodies were four in number. The clerical 
delegation was full, with the exception that Fairfield County, 
which never was suspected of lack of interest in the Say- 
brook system, wanted one clerical member; while New 
London County, where opposition to the Saybrook system 
was earliest and sharpest, sent more laymen than any other. 
That nine of these twelve clerical delegates were Trus- 
tees of the College, was plainly a matter of convenience, 
growing out of the legislative call of the Synod at the time 
and place of the College commencement ; not to speak of the 
manifest fact that the College Trustees were, as a body, the 
foremost ministers of the Colony. That only four of twelve 
possible lay delegates responded to their election by the con- 
stituent bodies and presented themselves at the Synod, is a 
fact explicable on quite other grounds than any antecedent 
opposition to the movement ; evidence of which at this stage 
of procedure seems wanting. 

Hartford County sent among her delegates Timothy Wood- 
bridge, the Pastor, and John Haynes, a member of the First 
Church. Mr. Haynes was a son of Joseph Haynes, the for- 



i9 Dr. Bacon's Norwich Address, Cont. Conn. Eccl. Hist., pp. 38-39. 
34 



2 66 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

mer Pastor of the Church, and grandson of John Haynes, the 
Governor of the Colony. 50 

The Synod thus convened at Saybrook, adopted the Con- 
fession of Faith agreed to by the Synod at Boston in 1680, 
which was a slightly modified form of the Savoy Declaration 
of 1658. It then adopted the "Heads of the Agreement 
assented to by the United Ministers formerly called Pres- 
byterian and Congregational," a kind of compromise platform 
on which some of the English churches of those respective 
titles — both equally put under disablement by the restored 
Episcopal system — had, in 1691, consented to stand in fel- 
lowship. Framed in this compromise spirit and for this fel- 
lowship purpose, the " Heads of Agreement," as might be 
supposed, ignored everything sharply distinctive either in 
Congregational or Presbyterian views. 

The Synod then formulated fifteen Articles — its charac- 
teristic and historically significant work — which constitute 
the platform known as the Saybrook Consociational system. 51 

President Clap in speaking of these Articles, says : 

"The substance of which (so far as they seemed to contain 
anything new) was this that whereas in former Times the 
Boundaries of the several Councils of Churches Consociated 
for mutual Assistance were unfixed, and left in the General 
Terms of the Neighboring Churches, Now the several Neigh- 
borhoods of- Churches were more precisely bounded, and lim- 
ited to the respective Counties or Districts." 52 

Doubtless Dr. Clap's representation would be excepted to by 
some who discern in the Saybrook Articles an elaborate device 



50 This John Haynes was born 1669, graduated at Harvard in 1689, was As- 
sistant and Judge in the Colony, and died November 27, 17 13. 

51 For the enlightenment of the later generation, to whom the Saybrook Arti- 
cles have become a kind of bugaboo, the Articles are given in Appendix VIII. 

52 Clap, Hist. Yale Coll., p. 30. 



1683-1732-] WOODBRIDGE AND THE SAYBROOK PLATFORM. 267 

for restricting the liberties of the churches. It has been well 
said of them : 

" Taken by themselves these fifteen articles were stringent 
enough to satisfy the most ardent High-Churchman among 
the Congregationalists of that day ; taken, however, in con- 
nection with the London document previously adopted, and 
by the spirit of which — apparently — they were always to 
be construed, their stringency became matter of differing 
judgment, so that what on the whole was their intent has 
never been settled to this day." 53 

For the purposes of the present narrative any attempt at 
settlement of that problem is unnecessary. The system, bad 
or good, continued the legally established one in the State 
till 1784; and continued the voluntarily accepted method of 
the majority of the churches much longer. In this Church 
whose Pastor and delegate had some hand in its devising, it 
continued operative one hundred and sixty-two years ; and 
its operation was such as enabled another eminent Pastor to 
say at the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its adoption 
at Saybrook, " the First Church of Hartford is a Consociated 
Church, and such I trust it will ever remain." 54 

The Synod reported their conclusions to the Assembly at 
its session in October following the meeting at Saybrook, and 
the Assembly declared its " approbation of such a happy 
agreement," and ordained, 

"That all the churches within this government that are or 
shall be thus united in doctrine worship and discipline, be, 
and for the future shall be owned and acknowledged estab- 
lished by law. Provided always that nothing herein shall be 
intended and construed to hinder or prevent any society or 
church that is or shall be allowed by the laws of this gov- 
ernment, who soberly differ or dissent from the united 



53 Dexter's Congregationalism in Literature, p. 490. 

54 Cont. Conn.EccL Hist., p. 87. Dr. Hawes' Address. 



268 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

churches hereby established, from exercising worship and dis- 
cipline in their own way, according to their consciences." '' 

Pursuant to the plan proposed by the Synod and ratified by 
the Assembly, the churches of Hartford County met at 
Hartford by their Pastors and Delegates on February 1, 
1709, making choice of Mr. Woodbridge as Moderator, and 
divided into two Consociations of churches and two Associa- 
tions of ministers ; the churches of Hartford, Windsor, 
Farmington, and Simsbury, constituting the constituency of 
one Consociation, and those of Wethersfield, Middletown, 
Waterbury, Glastonbury, Haddam, Windham, and Colches- 
ter, of the other. The Associational division of the minis- 
ters was, of course, correspondent with the Consociational 
division of the churches. The records of the North Asso- 
ciation of Hartford County, to which Hartford belonged, are 
in nearly complete condition extant, and they show that till 
his death, in 1732, Mr. Woodbridge was almost always pres- 
ent, and that whenever he was present was, with two excep- 
tions, chosen Moderator. Mr. Woodbridge was Moderator 
also of the General Association of the Colony, which met at 
Fairfield in September, 171 2, and at which were formulated 
the rules of procedure and standards of qualification in 
admitting candidates to the ministry ; the irregularity and 
uncertainty of both which, had been one of the main difficul- 
ties the Saybrook Synod had been devised to redress. 0G 

The establishment of a more settled order in ecclesiastical 
affairs was attended, naturally, with renewed religious en- 
deavor on the part of ministers and churches. The North 
Association of Hartford, in 171 1, called on "all such as had 
not yet owned the baptismal covenant" to "attend to their 
duty in that case ; " exhorted such as had owned it to renew 



■'■' Col. Rcc, v, p. 87 . 
58 Trumbull, i, p. 480. 



I683-I73 2 -] EFFORTS FOR REFORMATION. 269 

their engagements ; summoned all congregations within their 
boundary to better observance of the Sabbath, submission 
to constituted authority, avoidance of "profanity and im- 
morality ; " advised against " intemperance in the use of law- 
ful things, particularly against excess in drinking;" and, that 
they might succeed in such righteous endeavor, were com- 
mended diligently to seek divine assistance. 57 

These endeavors were seconded, in 1714, by the action of 
the Assembly, 58 taken in view of " the many evident tokens 
that the glory is departed from us," providing for a " strict 
enquiry" into the "state of religion; . . whether cate- 
chizing be duly attended ; " whether there be a " suitable 
number of bibles;" whether "any neglect attendance on 
publick worship," and "what means have been used with 
such persons " to induce them to attend ; and calling on " the 
Reverend Elders of the Association " to report their find- 
ings. The Elders reported, at the October session in 1715, 59 
a destitution of Bibles, a neglect of public worship, a failure 
in catechizing, a deficiency in family government, and preva- 
lent intemperance. Upon which report the Assembly passed 
various enactments, the better to enforce the law against 
" Lying," against " Prophane Swearing," against " Unseason- 
ble Meetings of Young People in the Evening after the Sab- 
bath Days and other times ; " and calling upon the Select- 
men of towns to see that families be supplied with Bibles, 
" orthodox Catechisms, and other good books of practical 
godliness, viz., such especially as treat on, encourage and duly 
prepare for, the right attendance on that great duty of the 
Lord's Supper " 60 



57 Ibid, ii, pp. 18-19. 
5S Col. Rec, v, p. 436. 
™ Ibid, p. 530. 
^ Ibid, pp. 530-531. 



270 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

These various endeavors were well intended, and were 
doubtless productive of some good. But one expression in 
the Assembly's enactment is exceedingly suggestive — the 
call for books encouraging and preparing for attendance on 
the Lord's Supper. 

The Half-way Covenant system was working out its legiti- 
mate results. People came to that halting-place and there 
remained. When a new ministerial or legislative endeavor 
was made to arouse religious feeling, it was satisfied by 
"owning the covenant." After a great earthquake, like 
that in Mr. Woodbridge's later pastorate, on the " night after 
the Lord's day Oct 29 th 1727, when the Almighty arose, and 
so terribly shook the earth," the fact recorded itself in mul- 
titudes owning the covenant. But that duty done, compara- 
tively few went further. The Church was in danger of 
becoming emptied of all but those admitted to this outer 
court. Moved by the desertion of the Lord's Table, at 
which those who only " served the tabernacle " of the cov- 
enant were regarded as " having no right to partake," Rev. 
Solomon Stoddard, a godly and honored divine at Northamp- 
ton, had written — fifteen years before this action of the Con- 
necticut Assembly G1 — arguing the converting tendency of 



61 Mr. Stoddard's volume was published in 1700, and followed by controver- 
sial discussions. His name is unpleasantly associated with a view of the place 
the Supper holds in relation to the religious life, which has generally been 
deemed erroneous ; but of Mr. Stoddard's great success as a true evangelical 
minister, ample evidence remains. No minister of New England in his day 
was, perhaps, so favored with revivals in his congregation as was Mr. Stoddard 
between the years 1679 and 1712. 

One point of connection between Mr. Stoddard and the First Church of 
Hartford may here be mentioned, if only as illustrating the process of disci- 
pline and of voting in the Church at this period. Some matter of offence 
charged by the Church against (t Maj. Joseph Talcot " was at a meeting held 
July 9, 1719, "referred to the Reverend Mr. Solomon Stoddard, Mr. John Wil- 
liams and Mr. William Williams for their advice." What the offence was, 
and what the finding of the Referees was, does not appear. But on January 



1685-1732] WOODBRIDGE'S OLD AGE. 27 1 

the Lord's Supper as a means of grace to those confessedly 
not yet experimental Christians ; and the Assembly seems 
to have thought that more of such "encouraging" books 
would be useful. The attempt, well designed but erroneous, 
to bring Christian standards down to the acceptance of men, 
instead of bringing men up to the standards, is instructive. 
It has its modern as well as its ancient illustrations, 
though in altered form. But it was a mistake then, as it is 
ever. 

No marked change in religious matters appeared in Mr. 
Woodbridge's day. He himself seems to have been a labori- 
ous and faithful man. Age crept upon him still honored and 
apparently beloved. His handwriting in the first extant 
Church record-book grew tremulous and indistinct. Occa- 
sional entries appear of baptisms by other hands — by " My 
Son" [Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, Jr.], or "by Rev. Mr. 
Whitman." February, 1732, seems to be the date of the last 
entry in his own writing. On the 29th of December pre- 
vious, the Society had passed the following vote : 

"Whereas the advanced age of our Rever nd Pastour and 
bodily Infirmities attending him in his Publick Ministry 
must in the Winter Season be overburdensome to him, Wee 
agree to Endeavour to provide Some Suitable person to 
assist him in his publick Ministry for the remaining part of 
the Winter." 

But the necessity was not long. He died April 30, 1732, 
aged seventy-six years and three months ; having served the 
Church in a ministerial capacity forty-eight years and eight 



31, 1720, "the following vote was offered to y e Church & consented to by 
them — If you do freely over looke & Passe by all things that have passed be- 
tween Maj. r Talcot & yourselves as matter of offence & do upon his desire 
withdraw your charge you have Laid against him to prosecute it no farther & 
do receive him to your charity & communion, manifest your consent hereunto 
by your Silence. Which was done by the Church." Mr. Woodbridge's Record. 



272 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

months ; of which period he was for forty-six years and 
three months its Pastor. 

Mr. Woodbridge married three times. His first wife, as 
has been said already, was Mehitable, widow of his prede- 
cessor, Isaac Foster. Of his second wife, a Mrs. Howell, 
little is known. His third wife, Abigail, widow of Richard 
Lord, and daughter of John Warren of Boston, was a woman 
of character and wealth, of whom there will be occasion to 
speak hereafter. 

Mr. Woodbridge had seven children, 47 two of whom 
became useful and honored ministers in Connecticut, — 
Timothy, at Simsbury, in 171 2; and Ashbel, at Glastonbury, 
in October, 1728 ; and both of them in turn had clerical 
offspring, whose names are had in honorable remembrance. 48 

Mr. Woodbridge was buried beside his predecessors in the 
ground back of the present church-edifice — the slab marking 
Isaac Foster's burial place as well as his own ; and his virtues 
were celebrated in an extended passage of the Election 
Sermon, preached eleven days after his death, by his friend, 
Rev. Timothy Edwards of East Windsor, the father of Rev. 



47 Mr. Woodbridge' s children were : 

1. Timothy, bapt. Oct. 3, 1686; grad. Y. C. 1706; minister at Simsbury 
1712 ; died 1742. 

2. Mary, bapt. June 19, 1692 ; married May 7, 1724, Hon. Wm. Pitkin of 
East Hartford; died Feb. 17, 1766. 

3. Ruth, bapt. Aug. 18, 1695 ; married Rev. John Pierson of Woodbridge, 
N. J.; died 1734. 

4. John, bapt. Jan. 31, 1697 ; buried Feb. 6, 1697. 

5. Susanna (probably child of second wife), bapt. Feb. 6, 1703 ; married 
Aug. 7, 1728, Richard Treat. 

6. Ashbel, bapt. June 10, 1704; grad. Y. C. 1724; minister Glastonbury, 
1728 ; married Nov. 17, 1737, Jerusha, daughter of Wm. Pitkin of East Hart- 
ford, and widow of Samuel Edwards of Hartford ; died Aug. 6, 1758. 

7. Theodore (son of third wife), bapt. June 23, 17 17 ; died young. 

48 Timothy, son of Timothy second, minister at Hatfield, Mass.; and Samuel, 
son of Ashbel, minister at Eastbury and West Hartland, Conn. William, also 
son of Ashbel, was the first preceptor of Phillips Academy, Exeter. 



1683-1732-] WOODBRIDGE'S OLD AGE. 273 

Jonathan Edwards of Northampton, and himself a child of 
this Church. 49 

A part only of the long and somewhat complicated para- 
graph need here be repeated. Mr. Edwards had just spoken 
feelingly of the death of Rev. Thomas Buckingham of the 
Second Church, who had passed away only a " few months " 
before, and now proceeding to speak of Mr. Woodbridge, 
delivers himself, in part, thus : 

"And also Considering the final departure of that aged 
and eminent Servant of Christ who died in this Town last 
week, who was one of the principal men of his Order in the 
Land ; Him, we that were his Contemporaries in the Sacred 
work of the Evangelical Ministry in the Towns about him 
generally Considered as much our Senior and Superior ; and 
in Cases of Weight and Difficulty advised with, yea and 
hearkened unto him as to our Head and Guide, yea very 

much as to a Father I may truly say of him that 

Considering the goodness of his natural Temper, the gravity 
greatness & Superiority that appeared in his Countenance, 
his bodily Presence being so far from Mean and Contempti- 
ble, that it was great much above what is ordinary ; his 
proper Stature (he being Taller than the common Size) with 
his Comley Majestic Aspect, being such as commanded Rev- 
erence ; and Considering how Wise and Judicious he was, 
with his great Prudence, his entertaining Freedom, obliging 
Courtesy & Affability, his superior Learning, Reading and 
Knowledge ; his Liberal, Bountiful, Generous and Publick 
Spirit (in which he did much excel) his great Ability for and 
readiness in giving Counsel, .... and how much the care of 



49 Timothy Edwards was son of Richard Edwards of Hartford ; he was born 
May 14, 1669; graduated at Harvard College, 1691, receiving the degrees A.B. 
and A.M. the same day as a mark of his " extraordinary proficiency;" and was 
ordained pastor at East Windsor in May, 1694. He married Esther, daughter 
of Rev. Solomon Stoddard of Northampton, Nov. 6, 1694, who bore him ten 
daughters and one son, Jonathan, born Oct. 5, 1703 ; and he died in the pastor- 
ate at East Windsor, Jan. 27, 1758, in his eighty-ninth year. The Election Ser- 
mon above spoken of was preached at Hartford, May 11, 1732. 
35 



274 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1683-1732. 

the Churches and the College lay upon him, and what a 
Blessing he was to them both ; . . . . and what Influence, 
Sway and Authority he had with Ministers and People, yea 
with men of all Ranks, Degrees and Orders, and how much 
he hath been a Healer of Breaches Strifes & Divisions 
among us, .... and Considering his Orthodoxy & Soundness 
in the Christian Faith, .... and Considering also for how 
many years and how well he filled the Pulpit, and (in our 
Councils and Associations) the Moderators Chair, .... and 
how brightly the Graces and Vertues of a Christian and a 
Minister of Christ shined forth in his Life, .... and how 
much good he did in his Day, and how extensively useful & 
servicable, and what a Blessing he was in his Generation, 
and how becoming a Christian and a Minister he carried 
himself in living & dying, I say Considering these things 
(beside others of the same kind which might be added to 
them) which I have briefly mentioned concerning this emi- 
nent Person, it may doubtless be truly said of him that he 
was one of the Choicest & greatest men, that has ever 
appeared among us in these parts of the Countrey." 

With which eulogium, which was probably all deserved, 
this chapter on Mr. Woodbridge and his pastorate may well 
enough end. 50 



50 Mr. Woodbridge's will is dated April 1, 1732. He had previously parted 
with most of his real estate to his sons by deed of gift. The inventory of his 
effects contains, among many other specified items, " 1 broad cloath coat, black 
Russet vest & briches, £15 ; " Library of books, ^34 ; " In the servants John 
Wobbin an Indian ^24; " Lydia, a "Negro Girll," £60 ; the old oxen ^"20; 
young oxen ,£16; one yoke large steers ^14. 10s ; brown cow and calf £8 ; 
one cow £6. 10; one do. £8. 10; one with calf £8. 10; one £6. 10; one heifer 
with calf £6. 10; one yearling steer £$ ; one do. £2. 10; stallion ^"12; one 
" Mare and colt in the woods " £2 ; one 5 year £4; one 3 year £2; one 2 year 
£2. 10 ; 3 colts ; sow and seven shoats. " 136^ oz. of Plate at i6 d pr. oz. 
^109. 14." From all which, as from similar inventories of Mr. Woodbridge's 
predecessors, it appears that a Hartford clergyman's belongings in the first 
hundred years of the town's history were in quality, to say nothing of magni- 
tude, very different from his possessions now. 



CHAPTER X I 



DANIEL WADSWORTH AND HIS TIMES. 

The " Some Suitable person " who was engaged to assist 
Mr. Woodbridge "for the remaining part of the Winter and 
Longer if occasion call for it," was probably Daniel Wads- 
worth. For, on the 2d day of May, 1732 — two days after 
Mr. Woodbridge' s death, and the evening of his funeral — 
a meeting of the Society was held and a tax levied " to Satt- 
isfy and pay Mr. Daniel Wadsworth for his Labours in the 
work of the ministry of the Gospel." This action, which 
contemplates payment for past services, was followed at the 
same meeting by the appointment of a committee, consist- 
ing of " His Hon r the Gov r , Capt. Wyllys, Capt. Shelding, 
Capt. Nickols, and Dea. Richards (with the advice of the 
Reverend Elders of the Association) to Treat with Mr. 
Daniel Wadsworth respecting his settling in the work of the 
Ministry of the Gospell amongst us." 

Apparently the report of the committee and the advice of 
the elders were favorable ; for on the 28th of June following, 
the question being put to vote in the Society meeting, 
"whether it is the mind of the Society to Call the Rev d 
Mr. Daniel Wadsworth unto the office of the Gospell Minis- 
" try," it was " Resolved in the affirmative." 

The Society then voted " five hundred pounds in Good 
Bills of public Credit" for Mr. Wadsworth' s "Settlement;" 
and a salary of one hundred and thirty pounds. By the 9th 



2 ;6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

of August, however, it seemed expedient, because of the 
uncertainty of the value of the currency, to hold another 
meeting and to vote " that provided the s d M r Dan 11 Wads- 
worth Settle in y e ministry among us this Society will an- 
nually .... grant and pay unto him so much in bills of 
publick Credit or in Case their Currency fail, in the other 
then Current medium of Trade in y e Country as shall be 
equivalent unto one hundred and thirty pounds in y e present 
bills of Credit according to their present value." l 

The young minister had boarded at Mrs. Abigail Wood- 
bridge's, after and probably before her husband's death ; 
and the Society committee were ordered to pay her "for 
keeping Mr. Wadsworth while he was in Hartford." 

Things being thus arranged, the ordination of Mr. Wads- 
worth took place September 28, 1732. The procedure on 
the occasion he himself inscribed on the Church record, 
as follows : 

" The Revd. Mr. Whitman 2 began with pray 1 ' and preached 
a Sermon from Mat. 24, 45., the Rev d Mr. Edwards 3 made a 
pray 1 ' and gave y e Charge, the Rev d Mr. Marsh 4 made y e next 



1 There had been a gradual depreciation of the Bills of Credit some time in 
progress. Mr. Woodbridge's salary was to be £100. But in the latter part of 
his ministry the medium of exchange was so far sunk in value that his salary 
in 1724 was made .£115 ; in 1725 till 1728, ,£130 ; and from 1729 to 1731, £ 1 5°- 
The depreciation progressed during Mr. Wadsworth's ministry, so that the 
sums voted as representing the ^130, on which he was settled, came to be, in 
1735, ^"140; in 1736 and 1737, £150; from 1738 to 1740, ^200; from 1741 to 
I743» £ 2 5°'> in *744 and 1745, £360; in 1746,^340; and in 1747, the last 
year of his active ministry, ^"400. 

2 Rev. Samuel Whitman of Farmington. pastor of the church of which Mr. 
Wadsworth was a member. He was graduated at Harvard in 1696; ordained 
at Farmington December 10, 1706 ; died 1751. His son Elnathan was ordained 
pastor of the Second Church in Hartford on the 29th of the November follow- 
ing this ordination of Mr. Wadsworth. 

3 Timothy Edwards of South Windsor. See ante, p. 273. 

4 Jonathan Marsh of Windsor ; graduated at Harvard 1705; ordained at 
Windsor 1709; published election sermons 1721, 1737 ; and died September 8, 
1747, aged 63. 



I732-I747-] DANIEL WADSWORTH. 277 

prayer, the Revd. Mr. Colton 5 gave the Right hand of fel- 
lowship." 

The Rev. Daniel Wadsworth who thus, in his 28th year of 
age, was ordained Pastor of the First Church of Hartford, 
was born at Farmington November 14, 1704. He was the 
great-grandson of William Wadsworth, who came to this 
country in the Lion, on the 16th of September, 1632 ; 
removed to Hartford in the general migration of 1636, and 
was a man' prominent in all public affairs till his death in 1675. 6 
William's son John — a brother of the Joseph Wadsworth 
who rescued and hid the Charter — settled in Farmington, and 
there John's son, John, and his grandson Daniel, were born. 

Daniel was educated at Yale College, graduating in 1726, 
in the same class with Elnathan Whitman — son of his 
Farmington pastor — who was to be his associate in the Hart- 
ford ministry as pastor of the Second Church. 7 Very prob- 
ably it was to the Farmington pastor that the two young 
Hartford ministers may have been indebted for their theo- 
logical training ; the usage of those days, before the estab- 
lishment of our technical theological schools, taking young 
men into the families of some established minister of repute, 
for their ministerial education. The new Pastor followed the 
establishment of his ecclesiastical relations by the formation 
of social ones, marrying, in February 1734, Abigail Talcott, 
daughter of Governor Joseph Talcott. 8 



5 Benjamin Colton of the Fourth or West Hartford Church; graduated at 
Yale College 1710; ordained February 24, 1713; died March 1, 1759. 

6 In July, 1644, he married Eliz. Stone (probably a sister of Rev. Samuel 
Stone), but she was a second wife, and not the mother of his children, some of 
whom were born in England. 

7 Elnathan Whitman survived both Mr. Wadsworth and Mr. Wadsworth's 
successor, Edward Dorr, and died in March, 1777. 

8 The frequent references in this and in the following pastorate to the Tal- 
cotts, and the relation of that family to the two Pastors and to the Church, per- 
haps calls for a statement of the family of the Governor : 



278 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

The occasion of a new ministry seems to have been laid 
hold of by the Society for the revival of the question of a 
new meeting-house. This question had already been a good 
deal debated. Obviously, the old house, on what is now 
Court House Square, had become incommodious. It was, 
as the records show, constantly undergoing repairs, and 
either because of its situation or its degeneration by age, 
was to be succeeded by another. 

The first form the meeting-house movement took was a 
proposal, in January 1727, four years before Mr. Wood- 
bridge's death, to build one house for the two Societies ; and 
a committee was appointed to confer with "our friends of 
the New Church .... to see if they are of our mind and 
whether they will engage with us to build a House and unite 
into one Society." 9 



Governor Joseph Talcott, grandson of first settler John, and son of Lieuten- 
ant-Colonel John, was born November 16, 1669, and married Abigail Clark in 
1693. By her he had three children : 

1. John, b. February 27, 1699; m. Abagail Theobalds, December 30, 1725 ; 
d. 1777. 

2. Deacon Joseph, b. February 17, 1701 ; m. Esther Pratt, April 27, 1727 ; d. 
July 3, 1799- 

3. Nathaniel, b. November 26, 1702 ; m. Hannah Ferris. 

By his second wife Eunice, daughter of Matthew Howell and widow of Sam- 
uelWakeman, he had six children : 

4. Abigail, b. April 13, 1707 ; m. Rev. Daniel Wadsworth, February 25, 
17.34; d. June 24, 1773. 

5. Eunice, b. January 26, 1709; m. Nathaniel Hooker, grad. Y. C. 1729; d. 

1795- 

6. Matthew, b. 17 13 ; m. Mary Russell ; d. August 29, 1802. 

7. Samuel, grad. Y. C. 1733; m. Mabel Wyllys, May 3, 1739; d. March 
6, 1797. 

8. Jerusha, b. May 3, 1717 ; m. Dr. Daniel Lothrop of Norwich, December 
4, 1744; d. September, 1805. . 

9. Helena, b. March 13, 1720; m. 1st, Rev. Edward Dorr; m. 2d, Rev. 
Robert Breck, November 2, 1773; d. July 9, 1797. 

9 The committee on the question of uniting the old and new Societies in one 
house building enterprise were " His Honor, the Governor [Talcott], Capt. Hez. 
Wyllys, Capt. John Shelding and Dea. Thomas Richards." The "new" 
society was now fifty-seven years old. 



I732-I747-1 * NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 279 

This overture receiving "no answer in writing," the So- 
ciety, on the 1 6th of the same month, appointed Captain 
Samuel Mather of Windsor, Mr. Edward Bulkley of Weth- 
ersfield, and Deacon John Hart of Farmington, a committee 
"to fix and determine the most accommodable place for 
setting up a Meeting House, next the great Street in Hart- 
ford, from the north west Corner of Capt Benj. Smiths Lott, 
to the south west Corner of Mrs. Eliza. Wilsons Lott," 
i. e., from about Central Row to Arch Street. Governor 
Talcott, Hezekiah Wyllis, and Captains Sheldon and Nichols 
were to confer with the above committee, and "to lay the 
matters of difficulty" before them. A "rate" of ,£100 was 
ordered for building purposes, to be paid "within four 
months." 

The matters of difficulty were the disagreements about 
the location. Attendants of the Society on the south side 
of the Little River thought the Meeting House Yard, now 
Court House Square, too far north. Attendants north of 
Meeting House Yard were not willing to go far south of it. 
Nothing magnifies distance like the removal of a meeting- 
house. Various places were proposed : the Burying-Ground 
lot, Captain Williamson's lot, and some location on Mrs. 
Wilson's long lot between what is now Arch Street and the 
lane north of the Athenaeum building. 

The out-of-town committee reported, March 6th, 1728, in 
favor of a location "on Mrs. Wilson's lot, on the south side 
of the barn on said lot, next the street, to be 15 feet south 
of the cow-house," a location in the near vicinity of the spot 
where St. John's church now stands. They were probably 
influenced, in part, in their decision, by the understood 
willingness of Mrs. Wilson to give the land for the purpose. 1 " 



10 Mr. Ebenezer Williamson took Deacon John Hart's place on the commit- 
tee. They were paid for their services, £\ 155-. ^d. 



2 8o THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

But the possibilities of meeting-house quarrels are infinite. 
Some did not like the proposed situation because it was too 
far south ; some because it was on the east side of the street, 
and unduly favored those who lived on that side. In Jan- 
uary 1727, the people on the south side of the Riveret 
professed their willingness, if the Meeting House Yard situ- 
ation were abandoned, to go anywhere on the Great [Main] 
Street, south of Smith's corner [Central Row]. But now, 
in 1728, when Governor Talcott and fifty-five others signed 
an agreement to build, if the house could be located on the 
burying-ground, the south-siders would not consent to it. 

So the matter waited. December 16th, 1730, it came up 
again. On that date, the Society appointed "His Hon r the 
Governour [Talcott] and Capt John Sheldon" a committee 
to ask leave of the "Town to sett a Meeting house Either in 
part or in Whole on the burying lott" — substantially the 
place where the church-edifice now stands. 

The Town next day, December 17th, left the matter to a 
committee to hear and determine. Apparently the deter- 
mination was favorable, for it .is referred to as such in 
subsequent discussions, and no after consent ever seems to 
have been sought or given for the building of the edifice on 
the burying-ground. 

But the scheme delayed. Mrs. Wilson died and her 
daughter Mrs. Abigail Woodbridge, wife of the Pastor, 
succeeded to her estate. Mr. Woodbridge died. At a 
meeting held on the evening after his funeral, May 2d, 1732, 
it was voted — apparently under stress of some "threatening 
of the party of the south side" that they would leave the 
Society unless the location fixed on by the out of town com- 
mittee were adopted — "by more than two-thirds of the per- 
sons Qualified to vote of s (1 Society," that a new meeting- 



1732-1747.] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 2 8l 

house was a "necessity," and that "wee agree to build said 
House on the Lott belonging to Mrs. Woodbridge . . if 
the Hon 1 . Gen 1 . Assembly will give us their Sanction so to 
do." The same meeting appointed "a committee to Treat 
with Mrs. Abigail Woodbridge for her allowance and Con- 
veyance of the Land." The Assembly, thus invoked, ordered 
and appointed said Society 

"To build their meeting-house on the lot of land belonging 
to Mrs. Abigail Woodbridge . . on the south of the 
great gate towards the southwest corner of said lot, and so 
nigh to the southwest corner as the committee of said 
society and Mrs. Woodbridge shall agree to." 11 

Mrs. Woodbridge on her part responded to the overtures 
of the committee by deeding to the Society on the 25th of 
June, 1733, "one certain piece or parcel of land . . contain- 
ing in quantity 7,842 square feet." The deed recites that 
Mrs. Woodbridge was moved to this gift by the consider- 
ation that her late "honored mother Mrs. Elizabeth Wilson 
. . . in her life-time did promise to give to God and 
the First Church and Society in Hartford, whereof the Rev. 
Mr.- Daniel Wadsworth is now pastor, so much of that lot 
of land which my said mother purchased of Mr. Ebenezer 
Way .... as would be needful and convenient to erect 
and build a house for attending the public worship of 
God," as, also by her own sense of duty to " honour God 
with my substance and to return to him and the Church 
some part of that which in his kind providence he has given 
unto me." She therefore proceeds to grant a lot of seventy- 
nine feet frontage and ninety-eight feet depth, on Main 
street, lying to the " South of the gate opening into " a cer- 
tain " barn-yard " which she owned along that street ; which 



Col. Rec, vii, p. 380. 
36 



282 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

barn-yard itself lay to the south of the acre of ground ceded 
by Mrs. Woodbridge, for the consideration of £100, to Rev. 
Daniel Wadsworth, and which is nearly enough represented 
by the lot occupied by the Wadsworth Athenaeum. 12 

The land given lay thus, it appears, in the vicinity of that 
on which St. John's Church is now standing ; it may be 
wholly to the north of it ; but with the intervention of the 
often referred to barn property of Mrs. Woodbridge, between 
it and the Wadsworth lot. Things were now apparently clear. 
A lot given in free possession, and a vote of the Society, 
June 20th, five days before the writings were actually passed, 
that the " Meeting-House to be erected shall be seventy foot 
in length and fourty-six foot in breadth," and a resolve of the 
Assembly that the house be built there. 

Feeling tr^e impulse of the new departure, it was at this 
June meeting of 1733 that the Society voted to make trial, 
under certain conservative conditions hitherto specified, 13 
of the new " singing by Rule," which the old Pastor, Mr. 
Woodbridge, had argued for, but died without the hearing of. 

But some way things moved slow. Eighteen months went by 
and nothing done but doubtless plenty of growling. # Then, on 
December 25, 1734, the Society voted that the new edifice 
" shall be of brick ; " ordered a " Rate " for their purchase, 
and appointed a building committee. But still there was im- 
pediment. Four meetings of the Society were held at the 
Court House between January 15th and the "first Thursday 



12 The grant to Mr. Wadsworth of the land on which he built soon after, and 
where he lived till he died, was made the same day as the deed to the First 
Society. But Hon. T. Day, in his Athenaeum Address, was certainly in error in 
stating that the north line of the Society lot, and the south line of the Wads- 
worth lot were identical. The barn property intervened between the two ceded 
parcels. 

13 Ante, pp. 226-229. 



I732-I747-! NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 283 

in March" 1736, at which 'the meeting-house question was 
debated. On the occasion last named, the following ques- 
tions were put to the. suffrages of the Society : 

" Whether under the difficulties of proceeding to build a 
Meeting-House on Mrs. Woodbridges Lot, in that about fifty 
of our Society refuse to pay anything toward building there, 
you think Convenient or proper to proceed further without 
addressing the Generall Assembly for their further direction. 
Voted in the Negative by 41. . . . 

Whether the Society voat that Dea. John Edwards and 
Mr. Edward Cadwell shall apply themselves in behalf of this 
Society to the Town's Committee to Set out a place for this 
Society to build a Meeting House ... on the burying Lot 
... as the Town vote hath Impowered them. Voted in the 
affirmative." 

Against these votes and two others, passed at the same 
time, raising a committee to carry the "whole difficulties of 
the Society" before the General Assembly, eighteen mem- 
bers of the Society entered a "protest" on the records, recit- 
ing that the Society had "already once agreed, and voted to 
build a meeting House for Divine Worship at a certain deter- 
minate place as the records show, and obtained a legal Sanc- 
tion according thereunto," and declaring that " wee ought to 
abide by and conform ourselves to the said Agreements, Cov- 
enants and Determinations." 14 

Both parties took their case to the Assembly — the major- 
ity of the Society requesting the Assembly to reconsider its 
locating order of 1732 ; the protestors reciting the facts, and 
stating that " materials, brick, etc., in great quantity" had 
been provided, a "rate of 12 pence in the pound" levied, a 



14 The protestors were " Hez. Wyllys, Tho. Richards, Cyp : Nickols, James 
Ensigne, Saml. Catling, Benj a Catlin, Saml. Shepard, Jonathan Butler, Tho. 
King, Thomas Ensign, jun r ., Thomas Hopkins, Joseph Shepard, Jonathan 
Mason, Jonathan Taylor, Moses Ensign, John Shepard, Jonathan Easton, Joseph 
Shepard, jun r ." 



284 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

building committee appointed, but that " at present the work 
ceaseth." The Assembly apparently listened more to the 
protestors than to the petitioners, and did nothing. 

The protestors were, however, by the 4th day of October, 
willing to modify their position so far as to accede to a pro- 
posal to Mrs. Woodbridge to take her barn -yard lot — higher, 
dryer, and a little farther north along the street — instead of 
the one formerly given for the site of the new meeting-house; 
and a committee was appointed to wait on her and see what 
she would do about it. The obliging lady consented to give 
a deed of exchange on condition that the Society move her 
old barn or build a hew one. Which being reported to a 
Society meeting on October 5th, it was voted, with a dissent 
only of four, to build on the barn-yard lot. The meeting be- 
ing a small one, another was held October 1 ith, when, two only 
dissenting, it was determined to " proceed to build where the 
Barn now stands, provided the General Assembly should 
order and allow us to do so." The Assembly did so with 
alacrity ; resolving, at its October session, in view of the 
record of a " Vote of all of said Society then present except 
two," that 

" The said place where the barn stands be and is hereby 
fixed and determined to be the place for building and erect- 
ing a meeting house by and for said first society, any other 
place appointed or act passed notwithstanding." 15 

But the new lot was still a few feet further from the old 
meeting-house than the burying lot would be. And then 
the removing of the barn ! and the " underpinings ! " The 
possibilities of the conflict were not exhausted. Church- 
building quarrels never are. In somewhat curt terms the 
Society voted, on the 17th day of January 1737 — after hear- 



15 Col. Records, viii, p. 74. 



I732-I747-] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 285 

ing a committee appointed to confer with Mrs. Woodbridge 
on the 4th of the same month — "that this Society will not 
Choose or Impower any Committee to Treat with Mrs. 
Abigail Woodbridge any further Respecting the moving of 
the Barn ; " and appointed a committee to buy a small part 
of Capt. Nathaniel Hooker's lot " next the Burying Lot ; " 
resolved that the building should be of wood, sixty feet in 
length and " fourty " in breadth, and authorized some of its 
number to apply to the committee empowered by the Town 
in December, 1730, to have the portion of "the Burying 
Lot" designed for occupancy, "Determined and Set out." 

This resolve to abandon Mrs. Woodbridge was, however, 
attended with one awkwardness. The Society had twice 
memorialized the General Assembly for leave to put its 
house on land given by that lady, and the Assembly had 
twice directed the Society to build there. That direction 
was still in force, The Society rose to the occasion. A vote 
was passed, the 26th day of April, which first brings the 
arduousness of the enterprise of encountering what had 
hitherto been only called " Mrs. Woodbridges barn," dis- 
tinctly and even pathetically before us : 

" This Society taking into Consideration the Great Charg 
of moving Mrs. Woodbridges Great Barn, Cowhousen, Long 
House, with all theire underpinings &c ; the hazard after all 
if they should fall Down ; and then we must be at the 
Expense of Building a New Barn of 30 feet in breadth and 
fifty in Length, all or either of which would Greatly weaken 
& Disenable us in Building oure Meeting House .... it is 
Voated .... to address the General Assembly in May next 
that we may have Liberty to set our Meeting House partly 
on the Burying lot and partly on Capt. Nathaniel Hooker's 
Lot." 

The Assembly compassionated the appeal, and resolved at 
its session in May, 1737: 



286 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

"This Assembly having considered the affair with the 
several places proposed to build the house on, do now resolve 
and determine that the south east part of the burying lot in 
Hartford, with part of Capt. Nathaniel Hooker's lot adjoyn- 
ing thereto shall be the place to erect a meeting house upon 
by and for said society, and do order said society to proceed 
to build accordingly." 16 



1(5 Col. Records, viii, p. no. It is not, perhaps, surprising, in view of the general 
constitution of the feminine, not to say the human mind, that Mrs. Woodbridge 
did not altogether enjoy this treatment of her. 

She withdrew attendance from the First Church worship and went to the Sec- 
ond Church. The Society re-deeded the land to her (not, however, till after 
request made by her) on the 7th of October, 1737. And on the 29th of Decem- 
ber, 1738, the following vote was adopted : " Whereas this Society have reason 
to think that some things which have happened Relating to the place of Setting 
a Meeting House hath been Greavous to Mrs. Abigail Woodbridge, Rellict of 
our Late Reverend & Worthy Pastour which has occasioned her withdrawal 
from us, We would signify unto her that we have a Grateful Sense of the Gener- 
ous Regard she hath shown to this society in time past, and hope she will not 
Remember whatsoever hath been greavous to her in the affaire aforesaid, and 
that her Return to this Society is what we desire and should Greatly Rejoyce 
in." This vote was conveyed to Mrs. Woodbridge by a committee, of which 
Capt. Hez. Wyllys was chairman. The lady was not implacable. She returned 
to the congregation, and died in its fellowship. 

Mrs. Woodbridge was the great-granddaughter of Elder William Goodwin 
of Hartford, and daughter of John Warren of Boston ; was born May 10, 1676. 
She married Richard Lord of Hartford, Jan. 14, 1692. After Mr. Lord's death, 
in 1712, she married Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, in 1716. By him she had one 
child, Theodore, baptized June 23, 17 17, who died young. Through her mother, 
Elizabeth (Crow) Warren, afterward Wilson, she became the inheritor of the 
original Elder Goodwin lot in Hartford, on Little River and Main street, up to 
this time undivided. 

During her husband's lifetime, in 1727, she gave a communion cup to the 
First Church in Hartford, bearing her name inscribed. This cup the Church 
sold, in 1803, for fifteen dollars. In 1883 it was re-purchased by Wm. R. Cone, 
Esq., at an advance of five hundred per cent., from J. K. Bradford of Peru, 111., 
a grandson of Dr. Jeremiah Bradford, who bought it at auction in 1803. Mr. 
Cone re-presented the cup to the Church, in a letter dated May 17, 1883, and on 
Sunday, June 3d, it was used again in the communion service, after an absence 
of eighty years. 

Mrs. Woodbridge survived her second husband twenty-two years, and died 
Jan. 1, 1754. Concerning one item in her will, the records of the First Church 
bear this memorial : " Hartford Jany 22 (1 1755. Recieved of Mr. Epaphras 
and Ichabod Lord, Executors to the last will and testament of Mrs. Abigail 
Woodbridge, Six pounds Lawful Money, it being a legacy left by said Mrs. 



I732-I747-] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 287 

The situation for the house being now, after eleven years 
conflict, finally determined ; and the Society having variously 
resolved that the house should be of u brick" and then of 
"wood;" should be seventy, sixty, and sixty-six feet long, 
and forty-six, " fourty," and forty-six feet wide, operations at 
length seriously commenced. 17 

A plan of the house was drafted by Mr. Cotton Palmer of 
Warwick, R. I., he being paid therefor £1. On Monday, 
June 20, 1737, work was begun on the frame of the new 
edifice. Sunday, July 31st, was the last day of public wor- 
ship in the old house, some of its materials being used in the 
new. The pulpit and suitable seats were ordered removed 
from the church to the State House, which was to be used 
in the interval between the two meeting-houses. A grave 
question shortly arose, however, about the bell. The bell 
had been broken in 1725, and recast in 1727, at the cost of 
both societies. Overtures were made to the Second Society, 
on July 4, 1737, proposing that as the "vote of both societies 
was that the bell should be hung in the old church until the 
major part of both societies agree to hang it in another 
place," that the Second Society should bear a " proportion- 
able part" in building "a steeple to hang the bell in ;" and 
offering, if there was any hesitancy on the part of the 
Second Society people to take this course, to leave the 
matter of the " charge each society shall be at in hanging 



Woodbridge to be loaned out at Lawful interest and the interest to be improved 
for the use and benefit of the poor members of the first Church of Christ in 
Hartford. I say reed. p r us, Edward Dorr, pastor, Jos. Talcott, John Edwards, 
Deacons. The money is loan d out and Deac 11 Edwards has the obligatV 
What has become of it ? 

17 Mr. C. J. Hoadly's careful examination of the construction accounts of 
Dea. John Edwards, and his articles, on the subject in the Coitrant s in January, 
1868, leave little untold which can be told about the building of the new church. 
His examinations have been liberally appropriated in the ensuing paragraphs. 



288 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

said bell," to " three judicious disinterested persons of some 
other society." No apparent arrangement was, however, 
arrived at, and the Society, on the 14th of July, ordered the 
steeple built. 

August 8th, the foundation work of the house was begun. 
Sills were laid September 8th. Raising the frame lasted 
from the 13th to the 22d. Mr. David Smith gave a barrel 
of cider for the occasion. £10 were also paid for liquor for 
this endeavor. Rum and sugar were furnished' the men at 
the brick kilns ; it being the old New England tradition that 
both heat and cold alike, demanded alcoholic antidotes. By 
October 1737, the frame had been raised, the steeple partly 
erected, shingles and boards had been procured. The roof 
was covered in that autumn. 

In May, 1738, Mr. Cotton Palmer began to make the spire 
above the bell-deck, for which he was to have ^£250. The 
gilded cock and ball which surmounted it cost ^52 13^. 6d. 
On June 5 th it was voted to give Mr. Palmer j£yoo to finish 
the body part of the meeting-house, " materials being found 
him ; " a sum which Mr. Palmer apparently thought too small, 
and the fixing of which seems to have cost the Society a 
year's time. Next year ,£800, exclusive of the cost of the 
masons' work, was tendered, and Mr. Palmer began to labor 
in May. The masons began plastering on the 17th of Sep- 
tember, and on the 23d of December, 1739, the house was 
finished, save the stepstones, which were not set in place till 
the summer of 1740, and "a small matter to be done to the 
steeple." 

This house stood sidewise to the street, its steeple on the 
north end. There was a door at the south end, another on 
the east side, and another under the steeple on the north. 
The pulpit was on the west side, and over it a sounding- 



I732-I747-] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 289 

board, and behind it a curtain, which, with its rings and 
trimmings, cost £2 $s. yd. 1B 

Dea. John Edwards, whose record of accounts gives many 
of the minor details of the building above-mentioned, writes 
on the cover of his book — very much in the spirit of Nehe- 
miah's rehearsal of his pains at Jerusalem — that he had taken 
pen in hand about 5,000 times in the affair. He reckons up 
196 persons engaged in the undertaking, of whom he marks 
124 as dead by October 1767. He, himself, died in May 

1769." 



is « Within the house, at the head of the ' Great Alley,' which, not obstructed now 
as in the former one, by the bell-ringer and his rope, extended from the front door 
westward, the pulpit arose to an altitude easily commanding every foot of the sur- 
rounding galleries, furnished with an imposing canopy or sounding-board, and 
the handsome window hangings behind. Beside the cushioned desk was placed 
a new hour-glass, its case of a model and finish more pretentious than its pre- 
decessors. Mr. Seth Young thought the Society could well afford to pay £6 
for it, but the bill was settled for ^5 10s. id. Another aisle probably crossed 
the house from the north or tower entrance to that at the south end. Plain 
seats- or slips occupied most of the middle of the audience-room at first, some 
pews being placed probably at either side of the pulpit, and perhaps extending 
as far as the north and south doors. Mr. Gerard Spencer turned something 
over nine hundred 'bannisters' for the tops of them. In 1750 the Society 
ordered four more to be built, two on each side of the ' Broad Alley,' and others 
from time to time were placed there as wanted, until most of this part of the 
floor was occupied by them. The windows, in the lower part of the house, at 
least, appear to have been fitted and hung with pulleys procured by John Beau- 
champ from Boston. Other persons at -sundry times delivered considerable 
quantities of iron 'to make waits for y e windows,' so that these convenient 
appliances at present to be found in our houses are not of so modern invention 
as some of us had supposed. Cords to hang the sashes were doubtless made 
here ; various purchases of hemp and flax ' to make rope ' are noted upon Mr. 
Edwards' book, and one large rope ' with block ' for the raising was bought at 
Northampton." Dea. Rowland Swift, First Church Commemorative Exercises, 
pp. 156-157. 

19 Dea. John Edwards was son of Richard Edwards, by his second wife, 
Mary Talcott, and born February 27, 1694. He was grandson of William 
Edwards, one of the first settlers of the town. Rev. Timothy Edwards of East 
Windsor was his half-brother ; being Richard Edwards' second child by his 
first wife Eliz. Tuthill. On the 2d day of March, 1747, the Society voted £Zo 
" to Mr. John Edwards for his care and service in building y e meeting house." 
37 



290 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

On the 1 8th of December, 1739, a committee was appointed 
"to Seat oure meeting House," with the advice of Governor 
Talcott ; and a vote adopted that "no Lecture" be preached 
in it " before we meet in it on the Sabbath." The dedication 
services took place December 30th, Rev. Daniel Wadsworth 
preaching the sermon, 20 from Haggai, ii, 9. The glory of this 
latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the 
Lord of Hosts. 

The "Doctrine" of the sermon is " that it is Christ's Pres- 
ence in it, that renders a House of Publick Worship truly 
glorious." And as this pamphlejt gives us our only clue to 
Mr. Wadsworth's style of preaching, it may be well enough 
to quote one or two brief passages : 

"Improvement VII. Let us all be Exhorted to Bless and 
Praise Almighty God for that he has favoured us with so con- 
venient and dece7it a House to Worship in. It is now some 
months more than One hundred and three years since the 
publick worship of God was first set up in this Town by our 
Pious Progenitors, who left Father and Mother, Brothers & 
Sisters, Houses and a pleasant Land, and some of them Cir- 
cumstances of ease and plenty with respect to the things of 
this world, and followed the Lord in a Wilderness, a Land 
not sown ; that there they might serve him in peace in the 
manner they apprehended most agreeable to his Will : They 
are dead and buried and their Graves are with us. And the 
House which they in the Infant State of the Town prepared 

to Worship God in, is also gone Yet blessed be God 

that there yet remains so much care and concern about Reli- 
gion, that by his Blessing on our Endeavours we are provided 
with Another House for Publick Worship, more beautiful, 

comely & decent than the former Improvement VIII. 

Finally, Let us all be instant and fervent in Prayer for a 
Blessing on the Word Preached and on the Sacraments Ad- 



20 The sermon was printed at New London in 1640, by T. Green, 4 , p. 28. 
A copy is in the Historical Society Library. 



1732-1747.] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 291 

ministered here. Let us be Earnest in prayer to God that his 
Word may have free course here and be glorified ; and that 
Sacramental Administrations may quicken, comfort and 
edifie us, and abundantly promote our growth in grace. 
Forget not to pray that the Gospel in the dispensation of it 
may be the power of God to the salvation of many. And for 
Me, to whom thd less than the least of all saints is this grace 
given that I should preach the Unsearchable Riches of Christ ; 
That Utterance may be given unto me that I may open my 
mouth boldly to make known the Mystery of the Gospel, that 
so many may be Born unto God in this House ; That the 
Lord may count when he writeth up the people, That this 
and that man was born here. Let us pray that those who 
Minister to the Lord here, from Time to Time, may be 
cloathed with Salvation and that the Saints of the Lord may 
shout for joy. That this Church which is part of the Mys- 
tical Body of Christ may continually be Edified." 

And so, at last, the new church-edifice which had succeeded 
to the one which stood, as Mr. Wadsworth says, " 99 years " 
in Meeting-house Yard, was fairly dedicated and entered on. 

But, alas, things are never quite right in this world. A 
Society meeting was held on the same day as the dedication 
exercises, and "Mr. Joseph Gilbert jr. presented a Memoriall 
setting forth Sundry Greavances respecting the seating of 
oure Meeting House, and more Especially respecting the 
Committy Seating Him." The matter was referred, but 
whether the " greavances" of Mr. Gilbert were removed does 
not appear. Such grievances were almost inevitably inci- 
dent to the usage of dignifying the house. The modern 
method of letting everybody set his own valuation on himself, 
is attended with at least one advantage. 

The completion of the meeting-house and the termination 
of the long controversy attending its location, must have 
been very welcome to Mr. Wadsworth and the more spiritual 



2Q2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. -[1732-1747. 

portion of his Church. These years of controversy had 
been, naturally, years of religious barrenness. From June 
1733, when the more active phase of the meeting-house 
trouble began, to May 1737, when the order of the Court 
finally locating the edifice ended it, only fifteen persons 
came into full communion, and only nineteen even owned 
the covenant. Meantime, only so far away as Windsor, a 
very remarkable revival had taken place, under the ministry 
of Rev. Jonathan Marsh. Other places in Connecticut, also 
— Coventry, Lebanon, Durham, New Haven, Hebron, Bol- 
ton, Groton — were the scenes of similar awakenings; and 
very eminently, Northampton in Massachusetts, in connec- 
tion with the preaching of Jonathan Edwards. 21 The year 
1735 is, indeed, commorHy taken as the commencement year 
of that period of revivals which has passed into New Eng- 
land history as the era of the " Great Awakening." It was 
however the year 1740, just at the opening of which the 
new meeting-house here in Hartford was dedicated, which 
was the beginning point of the most interesting and impor- 
tant period of that revival time. 22 The three or four follow- 
ing years wrought a change almost amounting to a spiritual 
revolution in the moral condition of the churches. 

It was in 1740 that Rev. George Whiten eld made his first 
preaching tour through New England. The religious condi- 
tion of the community was eminently favorable for his 

21 Edwards' Faithful Narrative, pp. 42-46. 

22 There is an interesting letter in the possession of Dr. J. H. Trumbull, 
addressed to Rev. Daniel Wadsworth by Rev. Philip Doddridge, acknowledg- 
ing the receipt of one from Mr. Wadsworth, written Sept. 15, 1740, in which 
Mr. Wadsworth had obviously spoken with cheer about the state of matters 
here; and Mr. Doddridge congratulates him on the "happy situation both of 
your civil and ecclesiastical affairs." Mr. Doddridge's letter is dated at North- 
ampton, England, March 6, 1741 ; and speaks of Mr. Wadsworth's letter as 
arriving " this evening." 



I732-I747-I WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 293 

success. The memory of the awakenings in many places 
from three to five years before was still fresh, and their 
beneficent results were plainly visible. Mr. Whitefield came 
with every advantage which kindled expectation and fore- 
running rumor of transcendent eloquence could impart. He 
was already famous in England. He had just completed a 
preaching tour through the middle and southern Colonies of 
this country, which had been attended by intense excitement 
and admiration, and by apparent spiritual success. In 
August 1740, he was invited by several of the most dis- 
tinguished clergymen and members of the churches of 
Boston, to come to that place and to New England. He 
responded to the call, arriving at Newport on September 
4th. His youth, his eloquence, his peculiar position as an 
Episcopal minister of the established church in full sympathy 
with the doctrines and the piety of the Puritans, attracted 
universal attention and general good-will. The whole region 
east of the Hudson may be said to have been on tip-toe to 
see him. A general expectation of great results from his 
ministrations went before him, and prepared the way. In- 
deed, a careful and sympathetic historian of the "Great 
Awakening" expresses the suspicion that the outburst of 
religious emotion which was ready at any time that year to 
flame out, was suppressed and kept back to await the coming 
of the eloquent evangelist. 23 

His success at Boston was triumphant. TJie churches 
were not able to contain the crowds who thronged to put 
themselves under the charm of his fervid utterances. He 
was obliged to hold meetings on the Common, and at various 
places out of doors. His transcendant voice is said to have 
rung clear in the ear of audiences of twenty thousand. He 



23 Tracy, Great Awakening, p. 83. 



294 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

preached in the adjacent region about Boston as far as 
Marblehead; sometimes twelve or sixteen times a week. 
He took up large collections for his Georgia Orphan-Home. 
He was entertained by the chief men of the Colony, both of 
Church and State. No such general* prostration of a com- 
munity before one man, and he a gospel preacher of twenty- 
five years of age, was ever known in New England before, 
and none has been known since. 

Thus heralded and adored Mr. Whitefield came westward. 
Leaving Boston, Monday, October 13th, "kissed" by Gover- 
nor Belcher, whom he left bathed in tears, he preached his 
way from point to point in Massachusetts, till on Friday, 
October 17th, he reached Northampton. Sunday evening he 
left Northampton, accompanied by Jonathan Edwards, who 
attended him as far as the house of Jonathan's father, Timo- 
thy, at East Windsor ; preaching on Monday at Westfield 
and Springfield, and on Tuesday at Suffield, by the way. 
Tuesday afternoon he preached at East Windsor, and there 
Jonathan Edwards had a conversation with him to which 
there will be occasion hereafter to refer. Next day, Wednes- 
day, October 22d, he was here at Hartford, and in the morn- 
ing preached — doubtless in the new meeting-house — to an 
audience, as he says in his journal, of " many thousands." 24 
The afternoon of this same day he preached at Wethersfield, 
where he issued a card, published in the Boston News-Letter, 
canceling certain preaching appointments. 



24 Whitefield's estimates of the numbers of his hearers have to be taken with 
a good deal of allowance for his vivid imagination. He speaks of preaching 
to "six thousand" in the Old South Church at Boston, and to "about six thou- 
sand" in the New North Church at Boston, "besides great numbers about the 
doors." The Old South still stands. Its recent seating arrangement gave 
room for more people than when Whitefield preached in it. A careful estimate 
of its capacity gave seats for twelve hundred and sixteen. It is not probable 
that twenty-five hundred people were ever in it at once. The Hartford Church 
would probably have been jammed to suffocation with twelve hundred. 



I732-I747-] WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 295 

From Wethersfield he went via Middletown and Walling- 
ford to New Haven, preaching at each of these places by 
the way. Thence, after holding several services in New 
Haven, he departed, preaching as he went, through Milford, 
Stratford, Fairfield, and Norwalk, to Rye and New York. Of 
Mr. Russell of Middletown, Whitefield says, " O that all 
ministers were like minded." 

This is one of the indications at this early date that all the 
ministers of the Colony did not equally approve the methods 
and utterances of the young evangelist. But it is probable 
that there was no considerable public dissent at the time 
expressed by many. The records of this Church show an 
accession of twenty-five to its full communion membership 
in the twelve months after Mr. Whitefield's transit through 
Hartford, and of eleven to its covenant. 

These seem no great results, and they are the most marked 
by far, of those belonging to any one year of the Great 
Awakening period in this Church ; but they show a health- 
ful change of proportion in the members covenanting and 
the numbers admitted to a fellowship which implied some 
religious experience. 25 

Upon that particular phase of operations which Mr. White- 
field advocated and represented, it is probable both the Hart- 
ford ministers and both the Hartford churches looked askance, 
and perhaps did so equally. Trumbull does, indeed, men- 
tion Mr. Whitman with a group of others, who were in gen- 
eral supporters of Mr. Whitefield, as favoring " the work in 



25 The interest in Hartford was great enough, however, to attract the atten- 
tion of that excellent man, Rev. Jonathan Parsons of Lyme, who came here in 
March, 1741, to learn what he ought to believe concerning the "surprising oper- 
ations " here, of which the reports were spread abroad. 

The records of the Second Church of Hartford of the period are lost. Those 
of the church in West Hartford show an accession of forty-five members in 
1741, and seven in 1742. 



296 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

Connecticut." And so doubtless he was a favorer of the 
revival of God's work, and so doubtless was Wadsworth. 

But there is evidence enough, as will be seen shortly, that 
whether right or wrong in their views, there was no separa- 
tion of judgment between Wadsworth and Whitman upon 
this question. Or if so much is to be very doubtfully con- 
ceded to Trumbull's collocation of names, as to suggest the 
possibility of Whitman's favoring a first Whitefieldian visit, 
he certainly did not favor a second. 

Why was this, and why was the very awakening which so 
marvellously blessed Connecticut and blesses it to this day, 
the occasion for a sharp conflict of feeling and judgment 
among the ministry and the churches, leading to many de- 
plorable actions and utterances on either side? The reason 
is not far to seek. It has been acutely remarked that " the 
Whitefield of history is not exactly the Whitefield of popular 
traditions." 2 " The Whitefield of the historic pilgrimage of 
1740, was a young man of only twenty-five ; of burning elo- 
quence and impassioned zeal, but of more enthusiasm than 
judgment; denunciative, censorious, uncharitable; lending 
the weight of his tremendous popular influence to the encour- 
agement of those fanatic extravagances of experience and 
of expression into which intense religious excitement is 
always prone to degenerate. Coming from England, where 
possibly in his time, the accusation of " carnality" and "un- 
regeneracy " might perhaps have been flung abroad against 
the ministry of the ecclesiastical establishment, without seri- 
ous damage, except indeed to charity, he gave tongue to 
such accusations in this country of Puritan birth and tradi- 
tions, where certainly he had little if anything to justify 
them. 



M Dr. Bacon's Norwich Address. Con. Eccl. Hist. Conn., p. 53. 



I732-I747-] WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. . 297 

Before he had yet set foot on Connecticut soil, the rumor 
of his habit in this respect caused even a letter of invitation 
addressed to him by the Eastern Consociation of Fairfiald, 
to caution him against " personal Reflections to wound the 
Characters of others who have been generally accepted 
among Christians for their piety." 

At Suffield he inveighed against "unconverted ministers 
as the bane of the Christian Church." At Windsor the 
calm-minded Jonathan Edwards conversed with him about 
his practice of "judging other persons to be unconverted," 
and about the large place Mr. Whitefield accorded to the 
enthusiastic " visions " of new-awakened enquirers or con- 
verts ; a conversation which Mr. Edwards says Whitefield did 
not seem to be offended at, but that he "liked me not so well 
for opposing these things." 

But the caution was useless. At New Haven, three days 
later — and of all audiences to the college boys — he " spoke 
very closely to the students, and showed the dreadful ill con- 
sequences of an unconverted ministry ;" a topic he followed 
up all -the way to New York. It is hardly strange that men 
in the ministry much the elders of this juvenile evangelist, 
conscious of their own sincerity and trustful of their own 
conversion, should disrelish being practically denied all 
" savor of godliness," for doubting the wisdom of some of Mr. 
Whitefield's utterances, and the judiciousness of some of his 
measures. But to doubt was to be accounted an opposer of 
God's work, and went far, of itself, to show that a man had 
— as David Brainard said of Tutor Whittelsey, who became 
soon after pastor of the church in New Haven — " no more 
grace than a chair." 

But all of Mr. Whitefield's censorious utterances might have 

been passed over in recognition of his youth and his devo- 
38 



298 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

tion, if it had not been for the actions of his followers. 
Many of these, ordained ministers, either having no proper 
charge or forsaking it, went through the Colony at. their own 
will, disregardful of the wishes of the settled clergy, encour- 
aging discontent with the usual ministrations of the pastors, 
.and disseminating crude and enthusiastic opinions as to the 
tests of piety and the methods of attaining it. A numerous 
crop of lay exhorters, whose zeal was a substitute for knowl- 
edge, thrust themselves into the function of preaching, at no 
other appointment than their own, and were loud and clam- 
orous largely in proportion to their ignorance. Such per- 
sons especially put great stress upon " visions" and "voices" 
in the awakening stages of the religious life ; professed infal- 
lible ability to discern spirits, especially the spirits of minis- 
ters; and passed sudden and damnatory judgment on all who 
doubted their ability absolutely to know and declare the mind 
of the Lord. 

So manifest had become the evil of this state of things 
within ten months after the passage of Mr. Whitefleld 
through the Colony, that an unusually full meeting 27 of the 
Hartford North Association, on the nth of August 1741, 
discussed and answered the following questions among 
others : 

" Whether any weight is to be laid on those preachings, 
cryings out, faintings and convulsions which sometimes 
attend y e terrifying language of some preachers and others, 
as Evidences of or necessary to a genuine conviction of sin, 



27 Present, Timothy Edwards, East Windsor ; Saml. Whitman, Farmington ; 
Saml. Woodbridge, East Hartford ; Jonathan Marsh, Windsor ; Benj. Colton, 
West Hartford ; Stephen Steel, Tolland ; Thomas White, Bolton ; Daniel Ful- 
ler, Jeremiah Curtis, Farmington ; Elnathan Whitman,. Hartford 2d ; Daniel 
Wadsworth, Hartford 1st; Samuel Tudor, Poquonnock ; Andrew Bartholo- 
mew, Harwinton ; Hezekiah Bissell, Wintonbury ; Jonathan Marsh, jr., New- 
Hartford. Ms. Records. 



I732-I747-] WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 299 

humiliation and preparation for Christ. Agreed in the 
Negative, as also that there is no weight to be Laid upon 
those visions or visional discoveries by some of Late pre- 
tended to, of Heaven or Hell, or y e body or blood of Christ, 
viz. as represented to y e eyes of y e body. 

" Whether y e assertion of some Itinerant preachers that 
y e pure gospel and especially y e doctrines of Regeneration 
and Justification by faith are not preached in these churches, 
their rash censurings of y e body of our clergy as Carnal and 
unconverted men, and notoriously unfit for office is not such 
a sinful and scandalous violation of the fifth and ninth com- 
mandments of y e moral Law as ought to be testified against, 
and such preachers not be admitted to preach in our pulpits 
and parishes until they have as publickly manifested their 
repentance as they have given out their false and scandalous 
assertions. Agreed in y e affirmative." 

At the same time the Association considered this further 
question : " What is to be thought of the religious concern 
that is at this day so general in y e Land ? " To which was 
given this answer : 

" Wee trust and believe that the holy Spirit is moving 
upon y e hearts of many, that many have received of late a 
Saving Change in many of our Towns, and hope and desire 
that through grace many may yet be savingly wrought upon; 
but there are sundry things attending this work which are 
unfruitful and of a dangerous Tendency, and therefore advise 
both ministers and people in their Respective stations cau- 
tiously to guard against everything of that nature, and wee 
for ourselves seriously profess our willingness to encourage 
y e good work of God's Spirit agreeable to his Word to y e 
utmost of our power." 

But the fire of enthusiasm could not be extinguished. It 
grew fiercer and spread wider. One of those who most 
actively fanned its flames was Rev. James Davenport of 
Southold, L. I. He was a son of Rev. John Davenport of 
Stamford, and great-grandson of Rev. John Davenport, the 



300 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

clerical founder of New Haven Colony. Whitefield had met 
him at Stamford in October 1740, and afterward in New 
Jersey, and pronounced him the " nearest to God of any one 
he had known." Being swept away in the general excite- 
ment of the time, Davenport abandoned his own parish, and 
set out on an itinerant mission among the churches. He 
was a man of a wild sort of vehement eloquence, and where- 
ever he went created great excitement. He denounced 
ministers generally, as unconverted, and called on people to 
abandon them. He wrought upon the excited imaginations 
of his hearers, encouraging wild outcries of anguish or 
rapture ; declaring in volcanic utterances that " he saw Hell- 
Flames flashing in their faces," and that many of them before 
his eyes were " now ! now ! dropping down to Hell." On 
one occasion he is reported by an eyewitness thus: "He 
came out of the pulpit, and stripped off his upper garments 
and got up into the seats, and leapt up and down some- 
time, and clapt his hands and cried out, the War goes on, 
the Fight goes on, the devil goes down, the devil goes down; 
and then betook himself to stamping and screaming most 
dreadfully." 28 

In July 1 74 1, he invaded Stonington, and preached with 
great effect, and it is said also with some lasting beneficial 
results. In August he called on Mr. Hart of Saybrook for 
the use of his pulpit, at the same time admitting that he was 
accustomed to condemn ministers as unconverted. A vain 
attempt was made by Rev. Messrs. Hart, Beckwith, Worth- 
ington, and Nott to come to some Christian understanding 
with him. He preached some time at Saybrook, against the 
remonstrance of the pastor, though not in the church. He 
went to New Haven in September. Mr. Noyes, the pastor 



28 Chauncy's Seasonable Thoughts ou the State of Religion, p. 99. 



I732-I747-] WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 301 

of the church, gave him his pulpit, but he presently declared 
Mr. Noyes "unconverted," and originated a quarrel which 
split the church into two permanently dissevered portions. 29 

Prosecuting his work in this manner and with these 
results, it is not strange that accustomed as the legislature 
was to be invoked, and to interpose without being invoked, 
on almost all ecclesiastic occasions, Mr. Davenport should 
have encountered the attention of the civil authority. 

He was arrested on a warrant from the General Assembly, 
together with Rev. Benjamin Pomeroy of Hebron, on com- 
plaint from Ripton parish in Stratford, alleging that Daven- 
port and Pomeroy were there collecting assemblies of people, 
mostly children and youth, and under pretence of religious 
exercises, were inflaming them with doctrines subversive of 
all law and order. 

The complaint was made on the 27th of May, 1742, and 
Davenport and Pomeroy were brought before the Assembly 
at Hartford on June 1st. The hearing occupied two days, 
and was in the " meeting-house," 30 doubtless of the First 
Society. The Assembly was in a rather severe mood. Rev. 
Isaac Stiles of North Haven, had preached the sermon at 
the opening of this May session, and had earnestly and even 
violently inveighed against the disturbances of the time, and 
the irregularities of doctrine and practice by which many of 
the warm advocates of the religious movement had been 
characterized. Governor Law, who had shortly before suc- 
ceeded Governor Talcott, was a vigorous opponent of the 



29 Tracy's Great Awakening, pp. 235-236. Bacon's Hist. Discourses, pp. 
214-223. 

30 Boston News Letter, No. 1997. The meeting-house was often used on 
occasions of great public interest, as affording better accommodations for the 
spectators. The proceedings on this occasion seem to have been by Joint 
Assembly. The Convention for ratifying the United States Constitution by the 
State of Connecticut was held in the First Society meeting-house, in 1788. 



302 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

new measures, and possibly had little sympathy with any 
fervent type of piety. Under his lead, it is alleged, 31 the 
Assembly at this May session passed a most stringent law, 
forbidding any minister to preach in any parish not expressly 
under his charge, without leave given from the minister of 
the parish and a majority of the parishioners ; and imposing 
as a penalty for the breach of this enactment, a deprivation 
of all ecclesiastical rights and the requirement of a penal 
bond of ;£ioo for each offence. 

By this same act, any " foreigner or stranger, that is not an 
inhabitant of this Colony," whether ordained or unordained, 
who should preach, teach, or publicly exhort in any town 
within the Colony, without the consent of the settled minis- 
ter and the majority of the people, was liable to arrest as a 
" vagrant " and to be sent out of the Colony. 32 The ground on 
which the Legislature based this extraordinary enactment, as 
set forth in the preamble, seems to be the assumption that the 
Say brook Platform of 1708 was binding upon all the churches 
as the settled ecclesiastical law of the Colony. So far as that 
assumption prevailed, it was certainly wholly unjustifiable. 
The Saybrook Platform was binding only on churches which 
accepted it. The law by which the legislature ratified it in re- 
spect to them, plainly expresses this. For years no one had 
imagined otherwise. Other churches had all along existed, 
organized on the Cambridge Platform, and had never ac- 
ceded to the Saybrook system at all. And the Assembly 
itself, in 1730, had expressly declared that beside the Say- 
brook Platform churches, Congregational — as the Cambridge 
Platform churches were sometimes called — and Presbyte- 
rian churches were allowed and protected by law. 



31 Trumbull, ii, 162. 

32 Col. Records, viii, 456-7. 



I732-I747-] WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 303 

This action, therefore, of this legislature of 1742 seems 
to have been based on a false assumption of law and facts, 
as well as on a violent infringement of what many regarded 
as the rights of nature and of conscience. The legislation 
thus inaugurated was followed up in subsequent years by 
other enactments designed apparently to enforce the univer- 
sal reception of the Saybrook System ; producing in the 
effort endless ecclesiastical strifes and separations, and doing 
much to bring disrepute upon the ministry and upon the 
system these enactments were intended to uphold. 

Yet the excitement of the time, and the great disorders 
attending the ministrations of the itinerant evangelists must 
be remembered in extenuation. Nor does the Assembly 
seem to have dealt harshly with the particular offenders 
whom we have seen summoned before its bar. The trial as 
has been said lasted two days. The town was in a great state 
of excitement. As the arrested ministers came out on to the 
meeting-house steps, on the ^conclusion of the first day's 
hearing, Davenport began a vehement harangue to the 
crowds about the door. The sheriff took hold of his sleeve 
to lead him away. " He instantly fell a praying, Lord ! thou 
knowest somebody's got hold of my sleeve. Strike them, 
Lord, strike them." Mr. Pomeroy also called out to the 
sheriff, "Take heed how you do that heaven-daring action ; 
the God of Heaven will surely avenge it on you. Strike 
them, Lord, strike them." 

The partisans on either side rushed in to aid or to resist 
the sheriff. For awhile it looked as, if the prisoners would be 
snatched away from him. But they were finally taken to a 
neighboring house ; the disappointed portion of the mob cry- 
ing out, " We will have five to one on our side to-morrow." 
The night was little less than a riot. An angry multitude gath- 



304 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

ered round the house where the two ministers were taken, 
and were with great difficulty dispersed by the magistrates. 
In the morning forty militia men were ordered on duty to 
suppress disorder. At the conclusion of this day's hearing, 
the Assemby declared, that 

"The behaviour, conduct and doctrines advanced by the said 
James Davenport do, and have a natural tendency to, disturb 
and destroy the peace and order of this government ; yet it 
further appears to this Assembly that the said Davenport is 
under the influence of enthusiastical impressions and influ- 
ences, and thereby disturbed in the rational faculties of his 
mind, and therefore to be pitied and compassionated, and not 
to be treated as otherwise he might be." 

They therefore under the provisions of the act respecting 
"strangers and foreigners" just passed, ordered him to be 
sent to Southold out of the jurisdiction. And so, about four 
o'clock in the afternoon, between " two files of musketiers," 
Mr. Davenport was marched from the meeting-house down 
to the Connecticut river, and, put aboard the vessel of one 
Mr. Whitmore, at anchor there; who having received his 
charge set sail immediately. Mr. Pomeroy was discharged 
without penalty. He-was an excellent man ; an enthusiastic 
supporter of Whitefield and the new measures ; had a long 
and honorable ministry at Hebron, though deprived and sus- 
pended for some seven years from his legal rights in his par- 
ish, for preaching in Colchester without the consent of Mr. 
Little, the minister there ; and thus made dependent on the 
voluntary contributions of his congregation. He however 
outlived all the trouble* of those excited days, and died in 
1784, at eighty-one years of age. 

Mr. Davenport continued his extravagant career awhile 
after the episode at Hartford, preaching in Boston and the 
vicinity, where he again encountered the law and was 



17 32-J7 47 \ WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 305 

again adjudged to be of unsettled mind. His last outbreak 
of fanatic extravagance was at New London, where on March 
6, 1742, he headed a party of his adherents in making a bon- 
fire of dangerous books ; shouting " Glory to God " round the 
pile, and declaring that as the smoke of the burning books 
rose up to Heaven, so the smoke of the torment of their 
authors' souls was now ascending in hell. Among the books 
thus burned were those of Flavel, Beveridge, Increase Mather, 
Dr. Sewall and Dr. Colman of Boston, and Jonathan Par- 
sons the godly and revivalistic minister of Lyme. 

Two years later however, under the influence of Rev. 
Messrs. Wheelock and Williams of Lebanon, Mr. Davenport 
wrote and published a confession and retraction of his errors 
and extravagances. But he had done mischief he could not 
undo. His former friends mainly pronounced his recantation 
an apostacy, and however sincere, they regarded it as a 
fraud. He gave occasion to many Separatist divisions in 
the churches in Connecticut, and was the foster-father in 
them of many extravagances in belief and practice, to the 
long dishonor of religion. His last days were spent in New 
Jersey, in comparative quiet and orderliness of life. The 
charitable judgment respecting him is that he was partially 
insane, and that the excitement attendant on the Whitefield- 
ian campaign was too much for his reason. 

All these things show the intensity of feeling connected 
with the "Great Awakening" period, and the sharp division 
of sentiment which separated both ministers and people, as 
they looked on one or another aspect of the time. Those 
who regarded the new measures of the itinerant evangelists 
with some degree of distrust ; who believed in the superior 
usefulness, on the whole, of a settled ministry laboring in 
an appointed field, and in sober manifestations of religious 
39 



306 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

zeal, were stigmatized as Old Lights, Arminians, Formalists, 
and as inculcators of "mere heathen morality." They were 
reproached as setting themselves against God, as being 
opposed to the revival, as careless respecting the souls of 
men. Even the historian Trumbull does not fail, again and 
again, to make these implications concerning the general 
body of the ministers of that day who did not endorse all the 
New Light measures. 33 

But there was really no just ground for such charges. 
There is no substantial evidence that the mass of the clergy 
or of the church-membership, who looked somewhat askance 
on the methods and views which sprang up in connection 
with the "Great Awakening," were either unevangelical in 
doctrine or un solicitous for men's salvation. The charge of 
being so is one easy to make, always is made, in every 
period of revival when any one dissents, however conscien- 
tiously, from the counsels of the most fervid promoters of 
any of its methods. Our New England history has given 
opportunity for such charges, oftentimes. They have been 
made in very recent days. 

The middle path of wisdom is hard always to keep. It 
is probable that this Hartford Church, and the ministry of 
this Association, leaned somewhat strongly to the conserva- 
tive side. 34 The movement, as a whole, was one for "which 



33 It seems that Rev. Mr. Whitman, of the Second Church, was thus regarded 
by some of the more enthusiastic of his church-members ; some of whom with- 
drew from his ministrations and attended public worship elsewhere. See the 
letter addressed to Mr. Whitman, February 9, 1744, in reply to counsel sought 
by him, by Jonathan Edwards. Dwight's Life of Edwards, pp. 204-209. 

3i A slight but significant token of the feeling here, may be discerned in the 
fact that among the subscribers to Chauncy's Seasonable Thoughts on the State 
of Religion in New Englaitd, published in 1743 f which was the great book on 
what the New-Light men deemed the "Old-Light" and "anti-revival" side) 
may be found six members of the Hartford Association (Mr. Whitman of 
Farmington subscribing for two copies); and nine members of the two central 
Hartford churches (Mrs. Abigail Woodbridge subscribing for three copies). 



1732-1747-] WHITEFIELDIAN ERA. 307 

we have reason to bless God through all subsequent history 
to this day. Perhaps a larger share of benefit might have 
accrued to this community and to the surrounding towns, 
had these ministers and churches thrown themselves more 
into the line with Wheelock and Pomeroy and Bellamy, and 
even tolerated somewhat more generously a Davenport. It 
may be so, and it may not. Certainly this community was 
comparatively spared some of those ecclesiastical scandals 
which lacerated and dishonored religion in some parts of the 
Colony, where freer run was given to the new measures of the 
new men. 

In 1745, Mr. Whiten eld was a second time in New Eng- 
land. It was reported that he would make a second progress 
through Connecticut. The General Association, meeting at 
Newington, on the 18th day of June — Benjamin Colton of 
West Hartford, Moderator, and Elnathan Whitman of the 
Second Church, Scribe — vofed as follows : 

"Wheras there has of late years been many Errors in 
Doctrine and Disorders in Practice, prevailing in the Churches 
of this Land, which seem to have a threatening aspect upon 
these Churches, and whereas Mr. George Whiten eld has 
been the Promoter or at least the Faulty Occasion of many 
of these Errors and Disorders, this Association think it 
needful for them to declare that if the said Mr. Whitefield 
should make his Progress through this Government, it would 
by no means be advisable for any of our ministers to admit 
him into their Pulpits or for any of our People to attend 
upon his Preaching and Administrations." 

Dr. L. Bacon says ''every word" of this resolution is 
" literally true." Yet, he pronounces the adoption of it "an 
error as grave, and likely to be as mischievous," as any error 
of Whitefield's. 35 Possibly. But the ministers who passed it 



35 Norwich Discourse, Conn. Hist. Cont., p. 54. 



308 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

were in fresh view of the disorders which were visible all 
over Connecticut, and had not the experience of another 
hundred years of the habitude of toleration, which is so easy 
to us. 

The views of the local Hartford Association were as defi- 
nite, and were earlier expressed. At a full meeting of the 
body at Windsor, February 5 th, 1745, a testimony was 
drawn up, signed, and subsequently printed, 36 declaring that 

"As the Errors, Disorders and Confusions, which for some 
years past, have so generally prevailed through the Churches 
of this Land, had their Rise (as we apprehend) from the 
Preaching and Management of the Rev. Mr. George White- 
field in his former visit to New England, .... we the 
associated Ministers in the Northern Part of the County of 
Hartford, think it needful to bear a publick Testimony 
against him and his conduct .... hereby declaring that 
under the present Circumstances of Things we shall by no 
Means admit him . into any of our Pulpits, and in Faithful- 
ness to the People under our respective Charges we would 
solemnly warn and caution them to take Heed and beware 
of Him." 

In pursuance of these convictions the Association, at a 
meeting in June 1746, appointed a committee — of which 
Mr. Whitman of Farmington, and Messrs. Whitman and 
Wadsworth of Hartford, were members — to examine Mr. 
David S. Rowland, candidate for the ministry in the north- 
west society in Symsbury, now Granby ; and instructed their 
committee "to see to it" that Mr. Rowland "approve and 
submit to the Ecclesiastical Constitution established in the 
Churches of Connecticut," as, also, that the "said Rowland 
will not countenance and encourage Mr. Whitefield by invit- 
ing him to preach or attending his administrations, or any 



30 See Appendix IX for the document, which is a rare one, and for the signa- 
tures. 



I732-I747-] WADSWORTH'S DEATH. 309 

other Itinerant Preachers, or any other of the errors, separa- 
tions or disorders prevailing in ye County." " 

But right or wrong, as any one may choose to think the 
Association, the Church, and Mr. Wadsworth were on the 
chief ecclesiastical question of the day, his own share in 
influencing the determination of any such questions was 
about over. 

The last entry by him of any ministerial act in the Church 
record was the baptism of a child, December 7, 1746. A 
Society meeting on the 26th of January following, took action 
for securing a minister " during Mr. Wadsworth's absence, 
provided he go to Sea for his health." On the 2d of March, 
and the 4th of August, votes indicative of the Pastor's " in- 
disposition " are recorded ; and on the second of those occa- 
sions a committee was instructed "to apply themselves to Mr. 
Edward Dorr to Continue to Administer to this Society during 
Mr. Wadsworth's Incapacity, and as need shall Require." 



37 At a meeting on the 1st of October previous, the Association, in respect to 
the same Mr. Rowland, voted " they do not advise his settlement in the work 
of the ministry " at Symsbury. It is obvious from the vote in June that the 
hesitation was on account of Mr. Rowland's conjectured or known views on 
the live question of the day. 

Mr. Rowland was apparently settled 'in accordance with this vote, but the 
Society at Simsbury, the following January (1747) voted : 

"1. Y* we chuse y* ye church in this Society shall be a settled Congrega 
tional Church 

" 3. Y l as we know of no human composition y 1 comes nearer to ye Script- 
ures than the Cambridg platform, so we chuse y* ye church in this society shall 
take it in ye substance of it under ye Scriptures for their rule of church govern- 
ment and discipline 

" 5. Voted y* we naurtheless are not straitened in our charity toward our 
neighboring churches y* are settled under Saybrook platform, or those called 
Presbyterians." 

With a minister committed to the Saybrook system, and a society voting 
thus, a few weeks after his settlement, that the " Cambridg platform" was the 
highest human composition, it is not strange that Mr. Rowland, settled with so 
much trouble, should be unsettled with no trouble whatever. The event took 
place in August 1747. He was subsequently "settled" in Plainfield, March 
1748, and unsettled, April 1761. After preaching awhile at Providence, R. I., 
he was installed pastor of the first church in Windsor, March 27, 1776, where 
he died, honored and loved, January 13, 1794. 



310 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1732-1747. 

Mr. Wadsworth died November 12, 1747, lacking two days 
of forty-three years of age, having filled a pastoral term of 
fifteen years and two months. He left a widow and six 
children. 38 He seems to have been a man beloved and re- 
spected, though there is no indication that he was a man of 
remarkable gifts or attainments. He was one of the Trustees 
of Yale College from 1743 to his death, having apparently 
been elected in the place of Rev. Samuel Woodbridge. The 
numbers admitted to the fellowship of the Church — seventy- 
five to the covenant and one hundred and three to full com- 
munion — do not appear large for the Great Awakening period ; 
but the proportion of one class to the other indicates a health- 
ful condition of the Church, and implies a right view of 
things in its Pastor. The period, too, had its local draw- 
backs, and some of them were felt in Hartford in full measure. 

Mr. Wadsworth, like some of his predecessors in the pas- 
torate, was a man of considerable property. He had patri- 
monial lands in Farmington and a homestead here. His 
estate was appraised at upwards of ^"2,000. His library 39 
gives no indication of special proclivities on his part to any 
particular subject of enquiry. It compares quite favorably 
with the libraries of ministers generally, situated as he was. 

Mr. Wadsworth sleeps beside those who occupied his office 
before him, in the old Hartford burying-ground. 



38 His wife, as has been said, page 277, was Abigail, daughter of Gov. Joseph 
Talcott. They were married February 28, 1734. Their children were, Abigail, 
b. January 28, 1735; Eunice, b. August 31, 1736, d. July 23, 1825; Elizabeth, 
b. July 19, 1738, d. November 15, 1810; Daniel, b. January 21, 1741, d. Novem- 
ber 3, 1750; Jeremiah, b. July 12, 1743, d. April 30, 1804; Ruth, born 1746, d. 
December 27, 1750. 

Jeremiah married Mehitable Russell, and became the father of Daniel, the 
founder of the Athenaeum, and of Catherine and Hannah. With this Daniel, 
who died in 1848 without children, the name of Wadsworth, in the direct 
male line from Rev. Daniel, became extinct. 

39 See Appendix X. The exaggerated valuation put on the books shows the 
depreciated state of the currency, and suggests that the estate of Mr. Wads- 
worth may not have been as large as the figures suggest. 



CHAPTER XII 



EDWARD DORR AND HIS TIMES. 

As Mr. Wadsworth had been called in to supply the need 
occasioned by Mr. Woodbridge's disability, and had succeeded 
to the pastorate, so Mr. Edward Dorr, preaching awhile in 
Mr. Wadsworth's illness, followed also in his office. 

Rev. Edward Dorr was born at Lyme, November 2, 1722. 
He was the second son of Edmund Dorr, clothier, of Lyme, 
and grandson of Edward Dorr, the first of the name in this 
country, who came to Roxbury, Mass., about 1670. His 
mother was Mary, daughter of Matthew Griswold of Lyme. 

From the age of eight years to his entrance at Yale College, 
probably at sixteen, his religious impressions, outside of those 
of home life, must have been derived from the ministrations 
of Rev. Jonathan Parsons, 1 who was settled in Lyme in 1730, 
and who was one of the most zealous and useful of Connect- 
icut ministers in the era of the Great Awakening. To whom 



1 Jonathan Parsons was born at West Springfield, Mass., November 30, 
1705; graduated at Yale College in 1729, and ordained in Lyme in 1730, where 
he remained till 1745. He was one of the most efficient promoters of the revi- 
val of 1740. His account of the revival in Lyme, dated April 1744, is one of 
the most interesting papers belonging to the period. His sermon, A Needful 
Caution in a Critical Day, of the same year was an exceedingly useful production 
in restraining the excesses of the time. The last thirty years of Mr. Parsons' 
life were spent at Newburyport, where he was pastor of what is now called the 
Old South Church, and where, in a vault beneath the pulpit, his remains lie 
beside those of Rev. George Whitefield, who died at Mr. Parsons' house, Sep- 
tember 30, 1770. Mr. Parsons married while in Lyme, Phebe Griswold, a 
cousin of Rev. Edward Dorr. He was one of the ablest and best men of his 
period. 



312 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

especially he was indebted for the impulse which prompted 
his union with the church in Lyme, June 7, 1741, cannot 
perhaps be told. He was at that time a member of Yale 
College, and may have been converted in the college revi- 
val, or previously under Mr. Parsons' ministry at home. His 
name stands the eleventh on the list of the fifteen graduates 
of the class of 1742; the order of which list was at that day 
determined, not by scholarship or by the alphabet, but by the 
supposed social standing of the graduate or of his family. 

Mr. Dorr was licensed to preach by the New Haven Asso- 
ciation, May 29, 1744. On the 13th day of the following 
September he received a divided call, by a vote of seventy- 
seven to forty-three, to the church in Kensington ; a call con- 
ditioned furthermore by the proviso that " Rev. W m Burnham 2 
will oblige himself to relinquish his salary at or before y e set- 
tlement of said person," the " much esteemed Edward Dorr." 

Into the church and parish quarrel at Kensington it is 
not needful here to go. 3 It will suffice for the present chron- 
icle to say that a Council of ministers called by the church to 
consider the complicated situation, advised on January 2, 
1745, that Mr. Dorr continue to preach till the following 
June, " by which time God in his providence may more open 
and clear the way of his and your duty." On the 5th of 
June the Association advised his settlement. On the 10th 
of October the Society voted him ^700 "old tenor "as a 
settlement, and ^50 annually as salary for six years, and 
£60 a year afterwards. These propositions were accepted 
by Mr. Dorr, in a letter dated at Lyme, October 30, 1745. 



2 Rev. Wm. Burnham settled at Kensington 1712 ; died September, 1750; 
was the second husband of Ann Foster, daughter of Rev. Isaac Foster of the 
First Church of Hartford, who was married to him after the death of her first 
husband, Rev. Thomas Buckingham. See ante, p. 219. 

a The matter may be traced somewhat more at large in Andrews' New Brit- 
ain, pp. 47-49. 



1748-1772-] DORR AND HIS TIMES. 3^ 

Nevertheless the matter hung. Mr. Burnham's health im- 
proved. The chronic clamor for a division of the parish 
increased. On the 20th of August 1746, the Society voted 
a reconsideration of its proposals to Mr. Dorr. A Council 
called in to advise, recommended a support of Mr. Burnham. 

The following August, 1 747, found Mr. Dorr preaching in 
Mr. Wadsworth's pulpit in Hartford, and the Society voting 
to apply to him to "continue" to do so ; the language, taken 
in connection with former votes providing for a supply in 
the Pastor's disability, intimating that he may have been 
preaching in Hartford some time. 

Mr. Wadsworth's death, on the 12th of November follow- 
ing, opened the way for proposals for Mr. Dorr's settlement. 
" Mr. Daniel Edwards, Mr. Joseph Talcott, and Mr. George 
Wyllys," were therefore appointed on the 10th of December, 
to apply for the advice of the Association respecting the 
settlement of Mr. Dorr, and to that gentleman himself, on 
the same subject. The Association and the candidate both 
having apparently given favorable responses, the Society on 
the "third Thursday of January" 1748, proceeded formally 
to invite Mr. Dorr to the pastorate. 

The monetary negotiations in connection with this settle- 
ment of Mr. Dorr may be a little more fully detailed than 
their intrinsic importance demands, as affording an illustra- 
tion of the tangled condition of all commercial transactions 
conducted at that time. 

The Society voted, in calling Mr. Dorr, to give him as " a 
Settlement 2000 Pounds old Tennor in equal Proportion 
yearly within Two years," and also give him annually " such 
a sum in Bills of Credit or Current money as shall (as the 
same becomes dew) be equal in Value to the sum of Eighty 
40 



314 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

Pounds in silver money, accounting silver at the Rate of 
Eight shillings pr. Ounce." 

On the first Thursday of February following, these propo- 
sitions were, on report of the committee, changed to the 
following : an annual salary of " seventy Pounds in Silver 
money at Eight shillings pr. Ounce;" the " whole Occupancy, 
use and Profits of the several parcels of Land and Meadow 
to this Society or Church belonging ; " 4 a " Sufficiency of 
Firewood for the Use and Comfort of his Family ; " and for 
his " Settlement among us the full sum of Three Hundred 
Pounds in Bills of Credit in this Colony of the New Tenor, 
within one year after his Ordination, and also one Hundred 
and Fourty Pounds in Silver money or bills thereto Equiva- 
lent within two years." 

At a meeting on the 16th day of February, Mr. Dorr by 
letter dissented from these proposals, and a large committee 
was appointed to confer with him. Two meetings were after- 
ward held ; the final outcome of which was an agreement to 
give Mr. Dorr an annual salary of seventy-five pounds in 
silver at eight shillings an ounce ; the use of the Society 
lands ; his firewood, and three hundred and thirty pounds in 
bills of new tenor, and one hundred and forty pounds in 
silver, or bills equivalent, as a settlement. 5 



4 The Society owned lands in the North and South Meadows, on the west 
side of the town, and on the east side of the River. The Holloway house and 
lot (see ante, p. 221) was also still in possession. 

5 It is disappointing that after all this elaborateness of arrangement, there 
should be room for such misunderstanding as to the equivalency of one or other 
currency that such votes as the following several times appear on the Society 
record, viz., Jan. 16, 1756, "Voted and agreed that Messrs. Geo. Wyllys Esq 1 ', 
Danl. Edwards Esq r , John Cook, Thomas Hopkins, John Sheppard, Joseph 
Wadsworth jr., & Hezekiah Marsh, be a committee with full power to Treat 
and agree with the Revd. Mr. Edward Dorr touching said equivalent, and fire- 
wood for this year : and that said sum or sums as they the s d committee or the 
major part of them, either together or without the s d Mr. Dorr, shall be agreed 



1748-1772-] DORR AND HIS TIMES. 3^ 

The salary question thus hopefully but delusively disposed 
of, and provision made for the " proper & Decent Entertain- 
ment of the Ministers &c that may be attending on that 
Business," the ordination took place. 

Mr. Dorr recorded the procedure with his own hand, as 
Mr. Wadsworth had done before him. "April the 27 th 1748. 
Edward Dorr was ordain d Pastor of the first Ch h of Christ in 
Hartford. The Rev cl Mr. Bissel began with prayer. Y e Revd. 
Mr. Whitman preach d a sermon from 2 Cor. 4-5, the Rev d 
Mr. Colton made the first prayer. Mr. Whitman of Farm- 
ington gave the Charge. Mr. Steel made the second prayer, 
and Mr. Whitman of Hartford gaue the right hand of fellow- 
ship. Give me grace O God to be a faithfull & make 
me a successfull minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ — 
E. Dorr." 6 

Following closely the steps of his predecessor in the way 
of introduction to the Hartford pastorate, Mr. Dorr followed 
his example, also, in marrying into the influential Talcott 
family. He took for his wife Helena, younger sister of 
Mrs. Wadsworth, and youngest daughter of the then lately 



on as an equivalent to said sum of ^75, and also sufficient to provide or satisfy 
for s d firewood, shall be duly paid to Mr. Dorr." 

The non-equivalency of silver and of bills continued all through Mr. Dorr's 
pastorate and the New Tenor, as they had under Mr. Wadsworth and the Old 
Tenor. In the last eight years of Mr. Dorr's ministry, from 1764 to 1772, about 
ninety pounds in currency seems to have been regarded as the equivalent of the 
^"75 stipulated. 

In May 1768, a vote was passed that individuals furnishing Mr. Dorr his fire- 
wood, on their rate account, should have it credited to them at seven shillings a 
cord for Oak wood, and nine shillings for Walnut. 

6 The minutes of the Hartford North Association contain, on a fly-leaf, the 
record of the Council. There were present Rev. Messrs. Whitman of Farm- 
ington, Colton of Hartford (West), Steel of Tolland, Whitman of Hartford, 
Bissell of Wintonbury, and Williams of East Hartford. Also the following 
Messengers : Deacon John Hart, Dea. William Gaylord, Dr. Cobb, Dea. Isaac 
Sheldon, Col. Joseph Pitkin, Mr. Matthew Rockwell. Rev. Samuel Whitman 
of Farmington, now seventy-two years old, was Moderator, and his son Elna- 
than, of the Second Church, was Scribe. 



316 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772 

deceased Governor Joseph Talcott ; a lady born March 13, 
1720, being thus two and a half years his senior. Whether 
the marriage occurred before his settlement, there seems no 
means of determining. The very particular stress about 
" Firewood for the Use and Comfort of his Family," suggests, 
perhaps, that the event had already taken place or was 
known to be impending. 

The new Pastor was, at his settlement, a little more than 
twenty-five years of age. The era upon which he entered 
upon his work was one of general religious declension, which 
lasted, with only slight and local interruptions, beyond the 
period of his pastorate. In fact, if the period from 1735 to 
1745 may be called the era of the " Great Awakening" in New 
England, the period from 1748 to 1795 may be called the era 
of the Great Decline. 

The controversies of the preceding years, growing to some 
extent out of the Whitefieldian movement ; the separations 
which took place from many Connecticut churches, and the N 
ecclesiastical difficulties and scandals arising from those 
separations ; the restiveness of many under the Saybrook 
platform, and the determination of others for the strenuous 
administration of the discipline established by that platform; 
the distracting influence of the French war, and the absence, 
however accounted for, of those divine spiritual influences 
which seem at times to triumph over all obstacles — all com- 
bined to make this period of the Colony's religious history 
one of general monotony and discouragement. 

In the midst of this comparatively depressed state of 
affairs there is every indication that Mr. Dorr exercised a 
laborious and faithful ministry. The accessions to the 
Church were few, but somewhat regular and continuous. 
Two hundred and seven persons owned the covenant, and 



1748-1772.] DORR AND HIS TIMES. 3^ 

fifty -five were admitted to full communion, during the 
twenty-four years and five months of his pastorate. The 
comparison of these numbers with the seventy-five who 
owned the covenant and the one hundred and three who 
were admitted to full communion, in the fifteen years of 
Mr. Wadsworth's pastorate is significant Especially signifi- 
cant is the striking alteration of proportion between those 
covenanting and those communing. It is plain that a larger 
and larger number of people were contenting themselves 
with such a merely formal assent to the gospel as carried 
with it the privilege of a qualified church-membership, but 
implied no spiritual change. The state of affairs was more 
and more approximating the condition of a State religion, to 
escape from which was one of the main reasons for the 
fathers' flight to the American wilderness. The "parish- 
way," which John Davenport had deplored the beginnings of 
in this Colony, had prevailed, and the church was suffering 
from the consequences. 

Against this condition of affairs the ministers of Connec- 
ticut made earnest, if only partially successful, struggle. 
The records of the General and local Associations show that 
the sorrowful condition of things was distinctly discerned, and 
that sincere efforts, if not always the wisest ones, were made 
for its remedy. 

In 1748, the year of Mr. Dorr's ordination, the General 
Association found it necessary to bewail "the great preva- 
lence of vice & prophaneness and a Lamentable Indifference 
in spiritual concerns;" and called upon the ministers "to 
take frequent Opportunities to Discourse in private with par- 
ticular persons upon Religious things." In 1755 the General 
Association exhorted the ministers "to insist upon those 
Doctrines in our Confession of Faith which are contrary to 



318 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

the prevailing Errors of the Day ; and particularly that they 
bear a seasonable Testimony against Socinianism, Arianism, 
Arminianism and Pelagianism" In 1756, the Association, 
"In consideration of the threatening Aspect of Divine Provi- 
dence at this day, particularly in the frequent and amazing 
Earthquakes 7 and their terrible Effect in various parts of the 
Earth, and especially the strange, unusual and distressing 
War 8 in this Land, as also in consideration of the awful 
Growth and Spread of Vice and Immorality," recommended 
that "every last Thursday in every Month for several Months 
coming," be observed as days of humiliation and prayer. The 
same Association took measures for a new edition of the 
Confession of Faith and Platform adopted at Saybrook in 
1708, copies of which "had become scarce in the churches ;" 
which new edition was printed in 1760. 

But war times are always times of religious decline. And 
Connecticut was at this time bearing her full share of the 
burden and the anxiety of the French and English contest. 
As early as 1755, a year before the war had been formally 
declared, Connecticut had in actual service between two and 
three thousand men. In 1757, after the attack on Fort Wil- 
liam Henry, the Colony had about six thousand of her men 
under arms. The quota generally demanded of Connecticut 



7 On the 18th of November, 1755, there was the most powerful earthquake 
ever known in this country. It occurred about four o'clock in the morning and 
continued nearly four and a half minutes. At Boston 100 chimneys were shaken 
down level with the roof, and 1,500 others in part. The course of the earth- 
quake was from northwest to southeast and was traced upward of a thousand 
miles. It was felt, across the apparent breadth of its line of undulation, from 
Halifax to Chesapeake Bay. Boston Gazette, No. 34; Memoirs American Acad- 
emy, i, 271-276. This was the same month as the great Lisbon earthquake, 
which occurred November 1st. 

H War had been in progress nearly two years, but was not formally declared 
till May 17, 1756, which was perhaps the "strange and unusual" thing the Asso- 
ciation speaks of. 



1748-1772.] DORR AND HIS TIMES. 3^ 

afterward, during the war till 1762, was five thousand. Of 
course this was an immense public expense, and a vast pri- 
vate anxiety. The cost of the war to this small province only, 
was over ,£400,000. Business was interrupted, industry 
crippled, life sacrificed, marriages retarded or prevented. 
Every social and religious interest necessarily' suffered injury 
and loss. 

Amid the general state of public anxiety and religious de- 
pression, a few notes of interest in local Church affairs may 
be gathered up. 

On December 29, 1748, soon after Mr. Dorr's settlement, 
Mr. Joseph Talcott, son of the deceased Governor by his first 
wife, and consequently half-brother to Mrs. Dorr, was chosen 
one of the Deacons of the Church ; which office he probably 
filled till his death in 1799, at the age of 98 ; a period of fifty 
years. 

January 1, 1756, Mr. Ozias Goodwin, grandson of Ozias 
the first settler, was chosen Deacon. He exercised the office 
twenty years, dying in January 1776, aged Sy years. 

January 18, 1769, Capt. Daniel Goodwin, great grandson of 
Ozias first, was chosen Deacon. He filled the office only 
three years, dying January 6, 1772. 

In 1755 it was thought necessary to enlarge the meeting- 
house to "accomodate the Inhabitants of the Society," and 
a committee was appointed for the purpose, but the matter 
seemed to go no further. Probably the need was not great. 
The whole number of inhabitants at this time in Hartford, 
including East and West Hartford, was less than thirty-five 
hundred ; and some quite appreciable portion of these must 
for the next seven or eight years have been absent in the 
war. And there were four meeting-houses. 

In 1756 the society voted that their "Committee Inform 



320 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

Mr. Dorr that this Society are desirous that Dr. Watts' Psalms 
may be sung in the Congregation at the time of Divine Wor- 
ship at least half y e time." 9 In 1760 a rate of £,\2 was lev- 
ied to procure "a convenient number of Curtains and a Cush- 
ing " for the meeting-house ; a vote which was followed by 
one in 1769, to procure " Shutters for the West side" of the 
edifice. 

A good deal of trouble all along these days seems to have 
attended the always vexatious business of "seating" the 
people. The resolutions are of unusual explicitness and for- 
mality. The year 1760 the Society took a different course, 
passing the following vote : 

" Voted and agreed that the Inhabitants of this Society 
for the future and until the Society order otherwise, have 
Liberty to accomodate themselves with Seats in the Meeting 
house at their Discrestion, any measures this Society hath 
heretofore taken for Seating s d House notwithstanding." 

This democratic plan did not, however, seem to give satis- 
faction ; for in April 1764, a committee was raised "to new 
seat the Meeting House in the Common and usual way and 
manner." 

On Sunday afternoon, June 14, 1767, just at the conclu- 
sion of public worship, the steeple of the meeting-house was 



9 The introduction of Dr. Watts' Psalms was attended in many churches, 
with not a little opposition. At a meeting of the Hartford North Association, 
on October 5, 1742, the following vote was passed : — " This Association having 
heard y l some difficultys have arisen in Goshen by Reason of y e singing of 
Doct r Watts psalms in publick worship, wee advise that for y e present they use 
only our common Version of y e psalms of David in public worship." The 
first London edition of Watts' Psalms was published in 17 19. The first 
Boston edition (being the thirteenth up to that time) was printed in 1741. 
Whether the Goshen people had got hold of this Boston imprint or had been 
using some one of the London editions cannot, perhaps, be proved. It rather 
strongly illustrates the conservatism of the Hartford Church, however, that 
fourteen years after the Goshen congregation had been making use of Watts' 
version, this Society should have only got so far along as to petition the minister 
to try it "at least half y e time." 



1748-1772.] DORR AND HIS TIMES. 321 

struck by lightning, and Sarah, daughter of John Larcum, 
was killed, and others were injured by the shock and by the 
rush to get out of the house in the panic which ensued. A 
rate was shortly after ordered, of ^130, for the repair of the 
damage done to the steeple and " to procure an Electrical 
Rod or rods as is thought necessarry." This rod is said 10 to 
have been " among the first and possibly the very first one 
in Hartford." A town clock, it is also stated — some remains 
of which still exist in the loft of the present church-edifice 
— was procured and placed in the repaired steeple about this 
time. 11 

For some reason or other the Society saw fit, in Mr. Dorr's 
time and shortly after, to alienate certain lands which had 
been in possession many years, and to which reference has 
been made in Isaac Foster's period. 12 Thus, three acres on 
the "West side of the town" were leased June 19, 1759, for 
999 years to Caleb Turner for £1$, and one silver penny 
annually ; one acre in the South Meadow to Joseph Church 
for 999 years, on May 6, 1769, for other land and one barley- 
corn rent ; three acres and forty rods " East side the River," 
September 19, 1769, for 999 years to David Case, for ^3 5^, 
and one barley-corn rent ; fourteen acres in the North Meadow, 
May 2, 1774, to William Wadsworth for 900 years, for ^270, 
and one wheat-corn rent ; and the Holloway property (deeded 
" to be held as a Parsonage land forever") to Jonathan Wads- 
worth, for ^141 1 5-y, and one wheat-corn annually for 900 
years. 

But probably the most interesting local religious matter, 
outside the routine of Church and parish affairs, which 



10 C. J. Hoadly, Courant, Jan. 25, 1869. 

11 Ibid. 

12 See ante, p. 221. 

41 



322 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

occupied the notice of Mr. Dorr and his good people, was 
the attempt made to plant an Episcopal church here. This 
endeavor began with the preaching in Hartford by Rev. 
Thomas Davies early in 1762. On the 6th of October of. 
that year, ground was purchased for a building a little to the 
north of the present Christ Church edifice — Church Street not 
being then opened. Land was bought and foundations were 
partly laid. But the enterprise suffered from the general 
hardship of the times and languished incomplete. In 1768 
the land and the foundations were sold by Dr. Wm. Jepson 
— who thought himself some way authorized to do so — to 
Robert Sanford, who in turn conveyed the same in 1769 to 
Samuel Talcott, Jr., a member by Covenant of the First 
Church, and brother-in-law of its Pastor. Mr. Talcott sub- 
sequently entered on the land and carried off the foundations 
to build a house of his own. 13 These events could not, of 
course, occur in the little village that Hartford then was, 
without — as Timothy Woodbridge said of another local 
quarrel eighty years before — " jogging all the attoms of the 
whole ant heap." 

And, indeed, the extension of Episcopacy in Connecticut 
was, by the generality of the Congregational ministers and 
churches, regarded as inimical both to civil and religious 
liberty. The question was not wholly a religious one. A 



13 The Court, being appealed to, restored the land, on December, 1772, to the 
Church. The movement made no progress, however, till after the Revolu- 
tionary war, when, in 1786, it was effectually revived, and a society organized 
November 13th. But the remembrance of the old trouble survived in the 
happy day of laying the foundations of an edifice which was to be the first 
Episcopal Church building in Hartford. It is said that " when sundry were 
gathered to see the commencement of the work, Prince Brewster, the mason, a 
member of the parish, said, ' I lay this stone for the foundation of an Episco- 
pal Church, and Sam. Talcott, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it.' " See C. J. Hoadly's Appendix to Christ Church Semi-Centennial pam- 
phlet, 1879. 



1748-1772.] EPISCOPACY IN HARTFORD. 323 

profound conviction was entertained that the introduction of 
Prelacy, meant the enlargement of authority. The extension 
of the English hierarchical system to America, signified a 
new hold of English rule upon the New England provinces. 
It was quite as much as a danger to the State that the exten- 
sion of Episcopacy was opposed, as it was a danger to the 
religious establishment. The Colonists knew well the assim- 
ilative power of religious and civil institutions brought into 
contact with each other. And they perceived a peril in the 
engrafting the prelatical system, which is naturally harmoni- 
ous with monarchy, upon their democratic institutions, still 
in the gristle of youth. Kingly supremacy and Episcopal 
rule were correlated facts, to be resisted alike and on substan- 
tially the same grounds. This peril, which was removed by 
the events of the Revolution and the general establishment 
of the country on democratic foundations, was constantly 
before the minds of the Colonial fathers. 

Nor was the apprehension thus felt at all lessened by the 
obvious solicitude of the Home Government in England 
about the condition of religious affairs in America. The 
frequent interrogatories of the Lords of Trade and Planta- 
tions as to "the Perswasion in Religious matters most prev- 
alent " here, and " what proportion in number and quality of 
people the one holds to the other," had not been unnoticed 
or forgotten. And the direct endeavors of prelates like 
Seeker and Sherlock to promote the establishment of an 
American episcopate; and the appeals to the King, to the 
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and to the Universi- 
ties of Oxford and Cambridge, by the Episcopal clergy of 
several of the Colonies, in the furtherance of this design for 
the extension of the Anglican hierarchy to this land, were 



324 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

recognized, and honestly feared, as ominous alike to religion 
and to liberty. 14 

The General Association of this State in 1766 received 
and responded to an overture from the Presbyterian Synod 
of New York and Philadelphia, for conference and agreement 
in " measures that may be adopted to preserve our Religious 
liberties against all encroachments." The particular peril to 
be guarded against is not specified ; but it was well under- 
stood to be the proposed establishment of bishops in Amer- 
ica. As a result of the conference between the General 
Association and the Synod of New York and Philadelphia, a 
correspondence was opened with the Committee of Dissent- 
ers in England, and measures set on foot for ascertaining the 
relative numbers of Episcopal and non-Episcopal inhabitants 
in the Colonies. The result of the Connecticut enquiry was 
that in 1774 there were in Hartford, in a total population of 
4,881, only in Episcopalians. 

The Revolutionary war, and the generally loyal attitude of 
the Episcopal Church to the Tory side of the conflict, post- 
poned the development of the episcopate. But it was doubt- 



14 While these pages are passing through the press an Address on John 
Adams, delivered before the Webster Historical Society, January 18, 1884, in 
Boston, by Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, comes to hand, which admirably states 
the feeling of the Massachusetts and Connecticut Colonies on this matter : 
" The Church of England, so far as it had a civil establishment, was the crea- 
ture of Parliament. It looked up to the King as its head, and to the Parlia- 
ment as its law giver. Its creed and book of prayer were established by 
statute. It could not reform its own abuses. Through Parliament the laity 
amended and regulated the Church. The election of the bishops by the 
clergy was only nominal. The purity of spiritual influence was tarnished by 
this strict subordination to the temporal power. This was the system. Its 
administration was still more objectionable to the Puritans. Its establishment 
in New England meant a return to that state of civil and ecclesiastical affairs 
from which they had suffered so much, and from which they fled to the priva- 
tions and sufferings of an inhospitable wilderness. So, at least, they regarded 
it. And the efforts of the Anglican hierarchy down to the Revolution never 
permitted this feeling to subside." 



1748-1772.] EPISCOPACY IN HARTFORD. 325 

less with some reference to Episcopal separatism as well as 
separatism of other types than that, that Mr. Dorr in his 
Election sermon of 1765 u was moved to say, 

" I readily own that every establishment of a religious kind 
should be upon the most generous and Catholic principles, 
and that no man or set of men should be excluded from the 
benefits of it for mere speculative and immaterial points, for 
different modes and ceremonies ; it must be something very 
material and weighty that excludes any. And the great un- 
happiness in this case had been, not that religious establish- 
ments have been set up in the world, but that they have gener- 
ally been founded upon too narrow, contracted and ungenerous 
principles. And magistrates have too often gone into violent 
measures in support of them. 

However, I take it to be plain, that the civil interests of 
mankind, the safety of the State requires, that there be some 
religious establishments, and that the public be obliged in 
some just proportion to support them ; nor have dissenters 
cause to complain of any little expenses on this account any 
more than of any other civil expenses whatever; there is 
nothing of persecution in it, nor can the consciences of any 
be in the least injured thereby, provided they are not com- 
pelled to be of the religion of the State, and are allowed to 
worship God according to the dictates of their own minds. 
This they have a right to expect, but they have no more right 
to ask for an exemption from contributing to the support of 
the religion of the State, than for any other measure the 
magistrate takes for the public good, which they happen to 

dislike Suffer me here to querry with your Honours 

Whether our laws in this Colony, made for the support of re- 
ligion, don't need some very material amendments and altera- 
tions ? And if they be sufficient, whether the construction 



14 The Duty of Civil Rulers to be the nursing Fathers to the Church of 
Christ. ... A sermon Preached before the General Assembly. . . . May 9, 
1765. By Edward Dorr, A. M., Pastor of the First Church in Hartford. Hart- 
ford, Printed by Thomas Green, at the Heart and Crown, opposite the State 
House, pp. 34, 



326 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

put upon them in many of our executive Courts hath not a 
direct and natural tendency to undermine and sap the founda- 
tions of our ecclesiastical constitution ? To me, I confess, it 
appears, that as a tax laid on the polls and rateable estate of 
the inhabitants of the Colony, is the only fund the law hath 
provided for the support of the ministry, the releasing of 
such members as have, on one account and another, been ex- 
cused for contributing to the support of the religion of the 
Government is such a diminution of this fund, as hath a very 
threatening aspect on our ecclesiastical establishment, and 
naturally tends, not only to enervate and destroy the same, 
but even to root out the very being of a learned ministry from 
among us ; and so is big with ruin, both to Church and 
State. And the danger in my apprehension, is increased 
from hence, that most of these dissenters are not by law 
obliged to set up and support any religion among themselves. 
And from principle they profess utterly to abandon and dis- 
claim all covenants, all obligations of this kind. 15 Considering 
human nature as it is, and the difficult situation of the coun- 
try as it is at this day, is there no reason to fear that many 
will forsake our worship and our churches, only from narrow 
and contracted principles of mind ? " 

If this passage shows that Mr. Dorr was not in advance of 
his age on the question of necessity of an Established 
Church, it clearly shows on the other hand that he was a man 
of good temper and of unusual clearness and power of ex- 
pression. Granting his point of view, it would be difficult 
to state his argument better than he has done. 

This favorable estimate of Mr. Dorr's ability and spirit is 
strongly confirmed by other portions of the Election Sermon; 
especially where he makes a warm and even eloquent plea for 
effort to Christianize the Indians. He says : 

"A wide door is now opened for this purpose among the 



15 This particular asseveration had of course no reference to Episcopal dis- 
senters, from the State religion. There were many, however, of whom it was 
accurately true. 



1748-1772.] DORR AND THE INDIANS. 327 

heathen natives of this Land, and we shall be inexcusable, 
altogether inexcusable in the eyes both of God and man, if 
we neglect it. One great reason, I doubt not, why the 
heathen have been permitted to be such sore scourges to 
these Christian colonies, is because they have done no more 
to send the gospel among them. Many difficulties, I know, 
great and almost insurmountable difficulties, have ever here- 
tofore attended this work ; but by the success of the British 
arms in America, and the late peace so happily established 
with the heathen natives, the greater part of them are re- 
moved out of the way. We have not those pleas to make, in 
excuse for our own neglect, that we once had when the 
French were possessed of the greater part of the inland coun- 
try, and were continually spiriting up the Indians against us. 
And I confess for my part, I have but little hopes or expec- 
tations of a settled peace with them, till we thoroughly at- 
tempt to send the gospel among them. Nor do I ever expect to 
see a more favorable crisis for this purpose than the present ; 
considering the dispositions that many of these natives have 
lately shown; their earnest desire to be instructed in the prin- 
ciples of our holy religion, and to have their children educa- 
ted after the English method ; it appears to me that the most 
favorable opportunity now presents itself to make some vig- 
orous efforts of this kind, that we have ever had, or probably 
ever shall have, if we neglect the present. Separate from all 
considerations of duty to our Maker, and viewing the matter 
only in a political light, it appears to me, to be our real inter- 
est to exert ourselves in this cause ; because this, if we con- 
ducted as we ought, would convince the Indians that we were 
their real friends, and sought their best good, and so would 
naturally attach them to us in the strongest manner ; and 
this would be a cheaper method of defence against their 
ravages and insults, than maintaining numerous armies and 
garrisons." 

If, in reference to the question of an ecclesiastical estab- 
lishment Mr. Dorr held the common views of his time, on this 
Indian question he certainly spoke words which are worth 



328 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

reading by our Government to-day, as well as by the Colo- 
nial Government of 1765. 16 

The only other extant published production by Mr. Dorr 
is " a Funeral Discourse, occasioned by the Much Lamented 
Death of the Honorable Daniel Edwards, Esq., of Hart- 
ford." 17 Mr. Edwards died September 6, 1765, and the ser- 
mon was "delivered soon after his decease." It is a well 
written and earnest sermon, confirming the impression of 
Mr. Dorr's vigor of utterance and excellence of Christian 
spirit, but calling for no special comment beyond this. 

Several of Mr. Dorr's predecessors in this pastorate died 
young or youngerly men. Haynes, Foster, and Wadsworth, 
all died so. ' He was to follow, if not indeed young, yet cer- 
tainly not old. A kind of paralytic affection seems to have 
overtaken him at about forty-seven years of age, and to 
have increased upon him till his death. 



16 In a note to the above quoted passage of his sermon, Mr. Dorr says, the 
" only endeavour of this kind, that I know of at this day, in the colony, is at 
Lebanon ; The Rev. Mr. Wheelock has set up an Indian school there, and with 
indefatigable industry and zeal has collected a number of children to be educa- 
ted after the English manner, and instructed in the principles of the Christian 
religion. He has lately obtained some help and a commission from the Society 
in Scotland, incorporating a number of gentlemen to act as corresponding 
members with them, for the purpose of promoting Christian knowledge among 
the Indians. But he has never yet obtained any considerable public encour- 
agement from the government All orders and degrees of men would 

do well to consider whether public guilt don't lie upon the land, for our neglect 
in these matters." 

17 Mr. Edwards was, as the title page of the sermon rehearses, " A Member 
of His Majesty's Council for the Colony of Connecticut, and one of the Assist- 
ant Judges of the Honorable, the Superior Court, for said Colony." He was 
the grandson of William Edwards the first settler, and brother of Deacon 
John Edwards, who did so much in the erection of the church edifice. He 
was born April 11, 1701 ; married Miss Sarah Hooker in 1728, and had five 
children, who all died in childhood but one daughter, Sarah, who lived to be 
married to Mr. George Lord. Mrs. Lord died in October, 1764, and Mr. Lord 
in October, 1765. Mrs. Edwards was a sister of Mr. Nathaniel Hooker, on 
part of whose lot the church edifice was built, after the long wrangle of 1726- 
1739. A copy of Mr. Dorr's discourse is in the Connecticut Historical Library. 



1748-1772.] DORR'S DECLINE AND DEATH. 329 

The first intimation of such trouble appears in a Society 
vote in December 1769 — based on the Pastor's representa- 
tion that he was " unable to perform the work of the Gospel 
ministry in said Society without assistance" — to apply "to 
the ministers of the South Society for the purpose of sup- 
plying the pulpit as occasion may be, and in case they cannot 
be obtained" then application was to be made "to some 
other suitable person for the purpose." The hopefulness of 
the application to the ministers of the South Society lay in 
the fact that Rev. Wm. Patten had been settled as colleague 
with Rev. Elnathan Whitman in September 1767, two years 
previously. But the overture failed, naturally enough. Mr. 
Dorr's infirmity increased. Votes respecting it and the 
means of supplying the deficiency appear from time to time. 
It will be enough to give the last. At a meeting held Sep- 
tember 7, 1772, it was resolved : 

"Whereas by the Disposition of Divine Providence the 
Revd. Edward Dorr our present Pastor hath for some time 
past by meanes of Long and Continued Indisposition been 
taken off from his work in the Gospel ministry in this Soci- 
ety, and his present Circumstances being such as leave but 
little hopes of His recovery to former usefulness .... it is 
therefore voted and agreed that in the Opinion of this Soci- 
ety under our present Circumstances there is a Divine Prov- 
idence for this Society to come into some measures to obtain 
some suitable Person as soon as may be to preach with them 
upon Probation for Settlement in the work of the Gospel 
ministry in said Society." 

The 20th of October following Mr. Dorr died, aged forty- 
nine years and nine months. A funeral sermon was preached 
on the occasion by the now aged senior pastor of the Second 
Church, who had been the cotemporary in the Hartford min- 
42 



330 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772. 

istry, both of Mr. Dorr and of Mr. Dorr's predecessor, Mr. 
Wadsworth. 18 Mr. Whitman says : 

" I am sensible indeed, that Funeral Encomiums are apt 
to be looked upon by many only as a Piece of Flattery to 
the Living, and a Compliment to the Memory of the Dead. 
But I trust that I shall stand justified to you, and to all that 
were acquainted with the worthy Pastor I am now speaking 
of. ... . His Natural Abilities were good, his Understand- 
ing clear and quick, and his Judgement solid and penetrat- 
ing ; and these Natural Abilities were greatly assisted and 
improved by a considerable Acquaintance with most of the 
Branches of human Literature. But it is more especially 
proper that I should consider him, as to his Acquaintance 
with Divinity, which his Business as a Minister, led him to 
make his principal Study ; and here his knowledge appeared 
to be very extensive as to theoretical and practical Divinity ; 
his Preaching was well adapted both to instruct and edify 
his Hearers. In his private Conversation he was pleasant, 
agreeable and entertaining ; free from austerity and reserve. 
. . . . He was of a kind and benevolent Disposition, always 
ready to contribute to the Relief of those that were in Dis- 
tress ; this his own People have had large Experience of, 
and I doubt not will readily bear witness to, and I hope will 

long retain a grateful remembrance of His natural 

Constitution was strong and firm beyond most of his Breth- 
ren in the Ministry, which enabled him to bear Fatigues and 



18 The title page reads, " Able and Faithful Ministers very needful for their 
People. A Sermon, Preached at Hartford, on the Day of the Interment of 
the Rev. Edward Dorr, Pastor of the First Church of Christ there. Who 
Departed this Life October 20 th , 1772, in the 50 th year of his age, and the 25 th 
of his Ministry. By Elnathan Whitman, A.M. Pastor of the South Church 
in Hartford. .... Norwich: Printed by Green and Spooner, 1773." pp. 
29. Mr. Whitman dedicates his sermon " To Mrs. Helen Dorr, the sorrowful 
Relict of Rev. Edward Dorr" The "sorrowful Relict," who was Helena Tal- 
cott (see ante, p. 315), and who had no children, about a year after, November 2, 
1773, married Rev. Robert Breck of Springfield, Mass.; exchanging thus a 
husband two years younger than herself, for one seven years older. Robert 
Breck was born 1713; graduated at Harvard 1730; ordained at Springfield, 
July 26, 1736; died April 23, 1784. 



1748-1772-] DORR'S DECLINE AND DEATH. 33! 

go through Difficulties, which few others were able to do ; 
and the benevolence of his Heart always, made him willing 
to lay out himself with Assiduity in doing Good to his Peo- 
ple, in every Way in his Power. 

" But toward the latter Part of his Life, he was attacked 
with a Disorder (supposed to be of the paralitic Kind) by 
which he was greatly weakened, and his Powers both of 
Body and Mind very much enervated. This Disorder, tho' 
it did not make very swift Advances at first, yet it quickly 
appeared to have made such an Alteration in him, that he 
seemed not to be the Man he used to be. His Sprightliness 
and Gravity were greatly abated and his Flesh emaciated, 
and his Strength decayed : and tho' for a considerable Time 
after he was first seized with this Disorder, he was able occa- 
sionally to perform some Part of his ministerial Work ; yet 
he seemed to be slowly and imperceptibly declining. He 
was not insensible that his Situation was critical and dan- 
gerous, and that the Prospect of his Recovery was dark and 
precarious ; yet under these gloomy Apprehensions, he mani- 
fested a Christian Patience and Fortitude of Mind, and 
seemed to be desirous of doing all the Good he could, and 
many Times exerted himself for this Purpose much beyond 
his own Strength. . . . Latterly he has been able to con- 
verse but very little, and that in a very broken Manner. No 
Means or Methods that could be used seemed to have much 
Effect toward putting a Stop to the Progress of his Disorder, 
but as it went on gradually increasing it at last put an End 
to his valuable and important Life, Oct. 20 th , 1772, in the 
50 th Year of his Age and the 25 th of his Ministry." 

The age and announced reserve of the preacher on this 
occasion forbid us to think there was anything over-eulo- 
gistic in these utterances. And their curiously archaic and 
mechanic style, when compared with the utterances of Mr. 
Dorr quoted before, confirm the impression, gained in many 
other ways, that Mr. Dorr was a man of superior qualities of 
character and utterance. His lot was cast in a dull time of 



332 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1748-1772 

the Church's history. He was cut off in the prime of his 
strength, and without posterity to keep his name in remem- 
brance. 19 But the tokens that survive to us, give him not 
only a fair but a very honorable place in the line of the 
ministry of this Church. He lies beside his predecessors in 
the old burying ground. 20 And the present account of him 
may well enough end with the lines which follow the Rev. 
Mr. Whitman's sermon preached at his funeral, printed in 
the same pamphlet : 

An Epitaph. 
Wrote by a Friend of the Deceased. 

His Flesh (where all that Man could boast 
Appeared and shone) lies here in Dust. 
Deep humbling Tho't to Sense ; but Faith 
Beholds his Triumph over Death ! 
His soul enlarged in happier Sphere, 
Improved in all that blest us here ; 
His Body rests, 'till Christ shall come 
And raise it to immortal Bloom : 
Then like his Lord the Saint will shine 
In Glories heavenly and Divine. 



19 Rev. Dr. Edward Dorr Griffin was nephew of the Pastor of this Church, and 
was named for him ; being the child of his sister, Eve Dorr, remembered in 
Mr. Dorr's will. 

20 Mr. Dorr's Will, dated Jan. 2, 1770, and proved Dec. 3, 1772, gave all his 
real and personal property in Hartford (except his wearing apparel, which is 
left to his brothers, George and Mathew Dorr of Lyme, and £$ each to his 
sisters, Elizabeth and Eve) to his wife, Helena Dorr. The Inventory of his 
estate was returned to the Court " by Mrs. Helena Brick, alias Dorr." The 
whole amount of his Hartford property was ^726 6s. lod. His Library was 
valued at £19 4s, \d.; his house and his homestead at ^400; other lands at 
£126. Among the items of the inventory are "A Negro woman called Sikey 
^15 ; a Negro boy called Peter £^\ a horse ^"io; a Cheise £9; Silver 54 oz. 
7 penny weit." 

Mrs. Helena [Dorr] Breck survived her second husband, Rev. Robert Breck, 
who died April 23, 1784 ; and probably returned to Hartford as her abode, dying 
July 9, 1797, and being buried in the same grave with Mr. Dorr. 





J^l^^-y 



CHAPTER XIII 



NATHAN STRONG AND HIS DAYS. 

The protracted disablement of Mr. Dorr from the duties 
of his office and finally his death, made necessary the tem- 
porary service of other preachers, but no overtures to any of 
them reached the point of official record 1 till, on the 3d of 
December, 1772, the Society took this action : 

".Voted to desire and direct the Societys Committee to 
apply to M r Joseph How to Know of him wheither He is so 
disengaged or at liberty that he can accept of an Invitation 
to preach upon probation in this Society in Order to Settle 
in the Work of the Gospel Ministry." 

Mr. Howe, who was thus applied to, was one of the most 
brilliant men of his time, and though cut off from life in 
early manhood, has left traces of unusual warmth and color 
on the generally gray and musty pages of history. He was 



1 The late Harvey Seymour of this Church — who died April 25, 1881, aged 84, 
and who was a native of West Hartford, and well acquainted with Dr. Nathan 
Perkins — told the writer that Mr. Perkins was approached upon the question of 
the Hartford pastorate, before the death of Mr. Dorr. His father, however, 
Mr. Mathew Perkins of Norwich, an extensive landowner, advised his son 
Nathan to go to West Hartford rather than to Hartford, alleging that Hartford 
"was as big a place as it ever would be," and that the '.'good farms of West 
Hartford would be a better security for a minister, than the trade of Hartford 
town." The son took his father's advice, and was ordained in West Hartford 
Oct. 14, 1772, and the land interest so prospered in his hands, that when he 
died, Jan. 18, 1838, he was said to be the largest landowner in town. Dr. Per- 
kins was born May 12, 1748; graduated at the College of New Jersey in 1770; 
married (1774) Catherine, daughter of Rev. Timothy Pitkin of Farmington ; 
and fulfilled at West Hartford a useful and honorable ministry of sixty-three 
years. 



334 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

born at Killingly, Jan. 14, 1747, and graduated with the first 
honors of his class at Yale College in 1765. Recommended 
by President Clap, he taught the Grammar School at Hart- 
ford after his graduation; was licensed to preach May 17th, 
1769, and was Tutor in Yale College from 1769 to 1772. 

He preached in Guilford, West Hartford, Wethersfield, 
and Norwich, and everywhere with singular and enthusiastic 
success. In May 1772, while on a journey to Boston for his 
health, he preached a single Sunday for the New South 
Church, and, in very unusual haste for the fashion of the 
times, received a call to settlement ; the justification of such 
precipitancy being "the character which Mr. Howe had 
recieved from the voice of Mankind." He was installed in 
that pastorate May 19, 1773. Forced to leave Boston at the 
British occupation in 1775, he went to his old home in Nor- 
wich. From there he came on a journey to Hartford, where 
he died suddenly, August 25, 1775, at the house of Rev. 
Elnathan Whitman, to whose daughter Elizabeth 2 he was 
engaged to be married. 



2 This was the young lady whose tragic after-history, told in the novel The 
Coquette, or the Life and Letters of Eliza Wharton, enchanted so the readers of 
our grandmothers' times, and has had a romantic interest ever since. In 
the Connecticut Courant of March 18, 1776, is an "Elegy on the death of 
Rev. Joseph Howe," written by a lady of his Boston church, in which the 
authoress depicts the funeral scene : 

" The fair Eliza's anguish who can paint 
Placed near the corse of our ascended saint ? 
Though his blest soul ascends the upper skies 
Her gentle bosom heaves with tender sighs." 

The same eulogy sings in reference to Mr. Howe as a preacher : 

" He in refined pathetic sermons shone, 
His diction pure, his methods all his own; 
While his melodious voice his audience blessed 
And rouzed each noble passion in the breast." 

Mr. Howe was buried in the Old Burying Ground, Aug. 26th, the day after 
he died. No monument marks his resting place. See Sprague's Annals, vol. i, 
pp. 707-710, and Couranty Sept. 4, 1775, and March 18, 1776. 



1774-1816.] SETTLEMENT OF STRONG. 335 

The overture to Mr. Howe was made, it will be noticed, in 
the interim between his reception of the Boston call and his 
rather delayed settlement there ; which accounts for the rather 
hesitant and unexpectant terms in which it was phrased. 

Failing in this motion toward Mr. Howe, the Society turned 
to another candidate — " Mr. Nathan Strong jr. of Coventry." 
It is impossible to say just when or for how long a time Mr. 
Strong preached " on probation " at Hartford. What ap- 
pears in the terms of it like a positive " Invitation to settle 
in the work of the Gospel ministry," inscribed on the record 
under date of June 14, 1773, is somewhat perplexingly fol- 
lowed, on the 30th of September, by another vote that it is 
" the mind of this Society to settle Mr. Nathan Strong jr. of 
Coventry in the office of a Gospel minister here," and a res- 
olution that " Messrs. Sam 1 Talcott, James Sheppard and 
John Lawrence be a Committee to attend upon and request 
the Advice of the Reverend Elders of the Northern Associa- 
tion " in the matter. 

The Society also voted that in case Mr. Strong accepted 
the call there should be paid to him, 

" The sum of four hundred pounds Lawful money within 
three years . . . and also this Society will annually pay to 
said Mr. Strong the sum of one hundred and thirty pounds 
Lawful money as a Salary for and during his Service and 
Labour amongst us." 

To this overture Mr. Strong made a reply, October 18, 
1773, expressing himself gratified with the overture, but 
saying : 

" I find myself obliged to observe upon a certain Clause in 
one of the Votes, expressed in a manner uncommon, though 
perhaps not entirely new. The clause which I mean is this, 
for and during his Service and Labour among us in the 
Work of the Gospel ministry. I am not the best skilled in 



336 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

Contracts of this Nature ; yet I think it may be a matter of 
dispute whether by that vote I am entitled to a support any 
longer than while I perform all the Service and Labour com- 
mon to that office. ... In matters of such importance, 
contracting Parties cannot too well understand each others' 
intentions. Many long and unhappy controversies arise 
from a little obscurity in original agreements. 

" A generous Settlement in Hartford will only purchase a 
Comfortable Habitation. A generous Salary will only main- 
tain a family with decency. . . . Though it is dishonora- 
ble in any person and uncommonly so in one who means to 
devote himself to the Sacred Office, to be anxiously solicit- 
ous in matters of this nature, yet I believe it his indispensa- 
ble duty, in common with all others, to use all prudent means 
in providing against want and necessity. I cannot think the 
laws of Christianity will oblige any person to put himself in 
a Condition that if by the Providence of God he is for a 
time rendered unable to perform the duties of his Office, he 
shall have no method to obtain even the necessaries of life 
at a time when uncommon expenses will arise. 

" For this reason I find myself unable to give an answer 
that will be conclusive either way, until you make it so by 
your own act. If Gentlemen it is your Intention that I 
shall yearly receive the Salary mentioned in your Vote, so 
long as I shall continue minister of this Society, and if you 
shall by a Vote inserted in your Records with this answer, 
unanimously manifest this to be your meaning and Intention, 
I will then accept your proposals, depending on your 
Candour." 

This answer being read in the Society meeting, November 
10th, it was "Voted, that the one hundred and thirty pounds 
voted for Mr. Strongs annual salary is to be paid annually 
as long as he continues settled in the Gospel ministry in this 
Society." A clear understanding being thus arrived at, 
" Messrs George Wyllys Esq, Doct r Solomon Smith, Jno. 
Lawrence Esq, Capt. George Smith, Jesse Root, and Capt. 



774-1816.] SETTLEMENT OF STRONG. 337 

James Nickolls " were appointed a committee to carry out 
" at the cost and charge of the Society " the business of the 
ordination, which was " Desired to be on the first Wednes- 
day of January next." 

Accordingly on January 5, 1774, Mr. Strong was ordained. 
A contemporaneous account of the matter is preserved 3 in 
the following words : 

"On the 5th instant was inducted into the Pastoral Office 
in the first and antient Society in this Town, the Rev'd 
Nathan Strong jun. late Tutor in Yale College. The 
Reverend Council conven'd on the Public Occasion at the 
House of Capt. Hugh Ledlie, from thence walk'd in Proces- 
sion to the Meeting House, preceded by the Brethren of 
said Church and the Society Committee ; with the former 
walked Mr. William Cadwell in the 90 th year of his Age. 
The religious Services began with an Anthem : the Rev'd 
Timothy Pitkin of Farmington made the first Prayer — the 
Rev'd Nathan Strong of Coventry preached a Sermon suited 
to the Occasion from those Words in 2 Tim. 4th Chapter 
and 5th verse, closed the same with a very affectionate Ad- 
dress to his Son and the Church and People of his Charge 
— the Rev'd Robert Breck of Springfield made the Prayer 
immediately preceding the Charge — the Rev'd Elnathan 
Whitman of this Town gave the Charge — the Rev'd Heze- 
kiah Bissell of Windsor made the Prayer immediately suc- 
ceeding the Charge, and the Rev'd E lip hale t Williams of 
East Hartford gave the Right Hand. A Psalm and an An- 
them then closed the whole. Every Part in the Public Exer- 
cises was perform'd with great Decency and Solemnity ; after 
which the Reverend Council return'd in Procession as afore- 
said to Capt. Ledlies where a generous Entertainment was 
provided for the Council, all Gentlemen Spectators in the 



3 Connecticut Courant, Jan. 11, 1774. The house of Capt. Ledlie, to which 
reference is made in the Coicrant account of the ordination, was situated where 
now stands the Allyn House Hotel, and was afterward occupied by Mr. George 
Goodwin. 

43 



338 TH E FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

Ministry, Candidates for the Ministry and Gentlemen of lib- 
eral Education. As the Settlement was unanimous and 
Promising a becoming Chearfulness and Decency appear'd 
among all Orders of Persons present on the Occasion." 

The sermon thus preached was published at the expense 
of the Society, and by its vote distributed " One to each 
person who pays a Rate the present year within this Society." 

The new Pastor thus at twenty-five years of age set in 
office, was born at Coventry, October 16, 1748. He was a 
descendant in the fourth generation from John Strong, 
ruling elder of the First Church of Northampton, Mass., 
who came to New England in 1630 and died in great old 
age in 1699. His father was Rev. Nathan Strong of 
Coventry, born in Woodbury, a graduate of Yale College 
in 1742, in the class with Edward Dorr; ordained pastor 
of the Second Church in Coventry, October 9, 1745, and 
died October 19th, 1793, in his sixty-eighth year. His 
mother was Esther Meacham, daughter of Rev. Joseph 
Meacham of Coventry, by Esther Williams, daughter of 
Rev. John Williams of Deerfield, Mass., who with her 
father was carried captive to Canada, February 29, 1704, 
and restored November 21, 1706. 

Of young Nathan little is recorded previous to his educa- 
tion at college, The sermon preached by his father at his 
installation indicates that the household instruction brought 
to bear upon his childhood must have been of a robustly 
Calvinistic type. " Eternal election, original sin, the impu- 
tation of Christ's righteousness, justification by faith alone, 
the necessity of special grace in conversion, the saint's per- 
severance in holiness unto eternal life," are declared in that 
sermon to be "the principal basis and foundation on which 
the superstructure of our holy religion stands." 



1774-1816.] STRONG AND HIS TIMES. 339 

It was while still a resident of his father's house and 
before entering on his college course, that those effectual 
impressions were made upon his mind to which he used 
afterwards to refer as the beginning of his spiritual life. 

The class at Yale in which he graduated, that of 1769, 
contained several members destined to distinction, but among 
them two easily distanced all others. These were Timothy 
Dwight, afterwards the President, and Nathan Strong. The 
standing of these two made the question of the chief class 
honor a delicate question to decide ; but it was given to 
Strong as being the elder, with the understanding that 
Dwight should have the priority at the taking of the Master's 
degree. 

After his graduation Mr. Strong began the study of law, 
but as we are told "suddenly changed his purpose" and 
turned his attention to theology. He was appointed Tutor 
in Yale College in 1772, occupying the position two years, 
during which time he was licensed to preach by the New 
Haven East Association, and made his first essays at pulpit 
utterance. These were so acceptable that his permanent 
ministrations were sought by various churches. Among 
these was the First Church in Hartford, which having ap- 
plied to President Stiles concerning the Tutor's fitness for 
the Hartford pastorate, is said to have been told by him that 
Mr. Strong was "the most universal scholar he ever knew." 

Fairly established at Hartford, Mr. Strong on November 
20, 1777, married Anne Smith, daughter of Dr. and Dea. 
Solomon Smith, a young lady of about eighteen years of age. 

The period of the institution of the new pastorate was a 
trying one. The colonial relationships to Great Britain were 
just on the point of rupture, and the feeble confederacies 
on this side of the Atlantic were about entering on a pro- 



340 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

tracted and exhausting war with that then recognizedly chief 
belligerent power in the world. Divisions of sentiment re- 
specting not only the details of the struggle but the main 
aim and method of it, divided to some extent every commu- 
nity, and very distinctly that of Connecticut. In this condi- 
tion of affairs Mr. Strong threw himself with great energy 
into the conflict for American liberty. He served some time 
as chaplain to the troops. He wrote and preached in sup- 
port of the patriotic cause. 4 Especially in the later political 
discussions connected with the establishment of the Federal 
Constitution he published a series of about twenty articles 
intended to harmonize public opinion in the ratification of 
that instrument. It was not probably at all on account of 
his ardent advocacy of this cause, but it was certainly ap- 
propriately harmonious with it, that the Convention which 
ratified the Constitution of the United States, on the part of 
Connecticut, was held in the church edifice of this Society 
in 1788. 

As the war progressed, financial difficulties lent their 
embarrassment to parochial and pastoral relationships, as 
well as to all other relationships having a monetary aspect. 
Representations were several times made to the Society by 
the Pastor concerning the insufficiency of his salary "to 



4 One of his sermons was at the execution of Moses Dunbar : " The Rea- 
sons and Design of public Punishment : A Sermon delivered before the Peo- 
ple who were Collected at the Execution of Moses Dunbar who was con- 
demned for High Treason against the State of Connecticut, and executed 
March 19 th A.D. 1777, by Nathan Strong, Pastor of the First Church in Hart- 
ford. Printed and sold by Eben. Watson, M.D. CCLXVII." i6 mo . The ser- 
mon does not give any considerable account of the convict or his crime, but 
deals with general moral considerations concerning obedience to law and gov- 
ernment, and allegiance to rulers. One sentence may be quoted as illustrative 
of the preacher's vigorous style : " It is known and cannot be secreted that 
many prefer a sordid gain to the salvation of their country, and would damn 
an empire to share a penny." 



1774-1816.] STRONG AND HIS TIMES. 34 1 

afford him a decent and comfortable support," owing to the 
depreciated condition of the currency ; and attempts, more or 
less adequate, were made for his redress. It significantly 
illustrates the pass things had come to in 1779, fi ye years 
after the Pastor's settlement, that at that date the Society 
voted, in addition to the one hundred and thirty pounds 
promised Mr. Strong at his coming, the sum of three thou- 
sand seven hundred and seventy pounds, to make up the 
current year's deficiency. 5 

At the same time with these financial embarrasments of 
the Society, the condition of the Church, and of the churches 
generally, was very low. 

The half-way-covenant sowing was producing its natural 
harvest. There were only fifteen male members in full com- 
munion in this Church when Mr. Strong was set in pastoral 
charge. As the public conflict progressed, a tide of infidel- 
ity set in under the sympathetic influence of French associ- 
ations in the war of Independence, and religion became, to 



5 This seems to have been the worst point of the depreciation so far as 
appears on the Society records. Up to this time the " Settlement " provision 
for Mr. Strong, in distinction from his annual salary, had been only partly paid. 
In 1780 a vote was passed granting "three hundred Pounds in Lawful Silver 
money, computing Spanish milled Dollars at six Shillings each .... for the 
purpose of paying Rev. Nathan Strong in part of what this Society are in 
arrears to him for his Settlement and his Annual Salary." " Distress war- 
rants" were issued against sundry delinquent rate-payers through all these 
years. The story is that this Society, brought face to face with the accumulated 
arrearages due the Pastor, was rather reluctant to settle the debt ; but its mem- 
bers were addressed in Society-meeting by Judge Oliver Ellsworth : " Gentle- 
men, we owe this money honestly and must not refuse to pay it." When matters 
settled down, after the war was over, additions of twenty or fifty pounds were 
occasionally voted to the Pastor's salary. In 1797 and afterwards, dollars and 
pounds appear side by side on the records till 1803, when it is voted that 
" Eighty Pounds (or Two Hundred Sixty Six Dollars & r 6 /o ) be granted Rev. 
Nathan Strong in addition to his stipulated Salary." From 1797 to 1803, the 
salary was $600. In 1809 the vote is that " Seven hundred Dollars shall be the 
Salary of Rev. Nathan Strong annually;" to which from 1812 onward, an 
annual addition of $150 was regularly voted. 



342 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

an extent unknown before or since in this land, a matter for 
gibe and contempt. 

Family afflictions too, shadowed this portion of the Pas- 
tor's history with unusual gloom. His young wife, Anne 
Smith, died less than seven years after their marriage, on 
October 17, 1784, leaving two young children behind her. 6 

Married again, June 20, 1787, to Anna McCurdy of Lyme, 
he was again made desolate, by her death, March 22, 1789. 
She left with him an infant child. 7 For the remaining 
twenty-six years of his life Mr. Strong continued a widower. 

Meantime the earlier period of Mr. Strong's ministry can- 
not be said to have been marked by tokens of spiritual vigor. 
Perhaps this was in the nature of events impossible. It 
may be however that Mr. Strong was lacking in some of 
those deeper convictions which distinguished and made so 
powerful his later ministry. It serves perhaps to corrobo- 
rate this impression, to know that in a considerable part of 



6 Dr. Strong's children by Anne Smith were : 

1. Anne Smith Strong, born Sept. 10, 1778; married Rev. David L. Perry 
of Sharon. She died Oct., 1840. Mr. Perry was born June 21, 1777 ; 
grad. Yale College 1997 ; ord. at Sharon, June 6, 1804; died Oct. 25, 1835. 

2. Nathan Strong, M.D., born Aug. 12, 1871 ; grad. at Williams College 
1802; studied theology and preached a short time; became a physician ; 
married Frances Butler ; settled in Hartford and died Aug. 2, 1837. Na- 
than Strong, M.D., by his wife Frances Butler (died July 7, 1849), na d 
three children : 

i. Frances Anne, born Feb. 11, 1814; died April 8,1853. Well remem- 
bered yet as the Principal of Hartford Female Seminary. 
ii. Sarah Butler married, 1836, J. C. Donnell. She died Aug. 20, i860, 
iii. Nathan, born about 1822; grad. at Trinity College; died in 1863 or '64. 

7 John McCurdy Strong, born Aug. 12, 1788; grad. at Yale 1806; drowned 
while attempting to cross the river at the ferry on Sept. 16, 1806. The young 
man on his return from a journey to Norwich rode his horse aboard the ferry- 
boat, and in the horse's fright in the stream went over the boat's side and was 
drowned. The funeral was attended the following day at the Second Church, 
Dr. Flint preaching the sermon from Matt, xxiv, 44 (published by Lincoln & 
Gleason, Hartford) and Dr. Perkins offering the prayer. See Courant, Sept. 
24, 1806. 



1774-1816.] STRONG AND HIS TIMES. 343 

this portion of his life, Mr. Strong was engaged extensively 
in the distillery business, with his brother-in-law, Mr. Reuben 
Smith. The records of Hartford land transfers show some 
twenty deeds of real estate involving thirty or forty thou- 
sand dollars worth of property, bought and sold by the part- 
nership of "Reuben Smith & Co." — Nathan Strong's name 
however generally taking the priority in the deeds made to 
or by the partners — between 1790 and 1796, together with 
their vats, stills, and cooper-shops, in the prosecution of this 
enterprise. 8 The venture, into which Mr. Strong is said to 
have put the patrimony derived from his father's estate, was 
ultimately unfortunate from a pecuniary point of view, and 
in October 1798 writs of attachments were levied against 
the property, and in default of that, against the bodies of 
Messrs. Strong & Smith, on judgment against them. Mr. 
Smith prudently took himself to New York. Mr. Strong 
remained in the house he had built — the house just south of 
the Athenaeum — which was attached under the sheriff's war- 
rant. 9 It is said that the sheriff proposed to take Mr. Strong 
to jail, but relented when told that he " would go with him if 
compelled, but if he went he would never enter the pulpit 
again." 10 



8 The purchase of the properties for the distillery business began in 1790. 
The chief sales of them were made in July, 1796. On the 25th of that month the 
distillery property of the two partners, on the East Creek, bounded west by 
Front Street and north by land of D. Goodwin, with stills, vats, cooper-shops, 
etc., was disposed of to'.Benj. G. Minturn and John Champlin, for $10,500; and 
nine other pieces of property to various parties to the amount of $21,706. 

9 Two writs in favor of Timothy Phelps of New Haven, for recovery of judg- 
ment, granted July 1798, to the amount of a little over $1,100 each, were thus 
at this time served; and execution returned on the land and house of Nathan 
Strong, Oct. 1, 1798. Two writs in recovery of judgment in favor of Malcom 
McEwen — respectively for £117 14s. yd., and ^125 12s. 3^/. — had been pre- 
viously (Sept. 17, 1796) satisfied out of Mr. Strong's personal property. 

10 One of Mr. Strong's characteristic sharp sayings was in connection with 
this distillery business. Some one had suggested in an Association meeting 



344 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

Whether the business distress which began to press upon 
Mr. Strong several years before this culminating incident of 
his disaster, had any causal connection with an altered tone 
in his ministry and a revived condition of things in his 
Church, it is perhaps presumptuous to assert. But certain it 
is that the year 1794, at which time the distillery business 
had broken down and the sale of effects appertaining to it 
had begun, witnessed the first indication of the spiritual 
awakening of his flock. One token of this quickened relig- 
ious interest remains in a vote of the Society, December 16, 
1794, ''to light the meeting-house for evening lectures ;" this 
being probably the first time religious meetings were ever 
held in any public building belonging to this Society in the 
evening. 

Mr. Strong's friend, Rev. Thomas Robbins of East Wind- 
sor, says that previous to 1794 "there had been frequent 
instances of individual subjects of divine grace, but no gen- 
eral attention among his people." " But certainly from about 
this point, the history of this pastorate is one of the most 
illustrious in this Church's annals. No one before this time 
could have questioned the Pastor's great abilities ; no one 
after this time could have doubted his sincere and increasing 
consecration to the Christian service. 

A man of indefatigable industry, of great acquirements, of 
ready and fertile faculties, of strong and penetrating intellect 
and of cogent and commanding address, he gave henceforth 
the utmost resources of his mind and heart to his Lord's 
work. 



that it was hardly the thing for the Pastor of the Hartford Church to be 
engaged in the manufacture and sale of liquor. " O," said Mr. Strong, " we 
are all in one boat in the business. Brother Perkins raises the grain, I distil 
it, and Brother Flint drinks it." 

11 Biographic Notice, Connecticut C our ant, Dec. 31, 1816. 



1774-1816.] STRONG AS PREACHER AND WRITER. 345 

This devotion had its appropriate recompense. Following 
the revival of 1794, another much more powerful occurred in 
1798 and 1799, which wrought a great and lasting change in 
the religious condition of the congregation and the commun- 
ity. In connection with this religious movement and as pro- 
motive of its aims, Mr. Strong published two volumes of ser- 
mons, one in 1798 and the other in 1800; 12 the first espec- 
ially fitted to the awakening, the second to the development 
and confirmation of evangelic piety. They are sermons full 
of vigorous thought and utterance, and generally simple and 
direct in aim. No one can read them and wonder that they 
powerfully impressed their hearers. They were, perhaps, the 
immediate occasion of the conferring on their author of the 
degree of Doctor in Divinity by the College of New Jersey 
in 1801. 

As a sample of their robust and unstudied style a speci- 
men may be quoted here from the " improvement " of the 
sermon entitled : On the different conditions of men in the 
present and future world. Luke xvi, 25 : 

" This subject shows the vast alteration there may be in the 
condition of persons in the present and in the future world. 
We are very liable to form an opinion of the perpetual con- 
dition of men, from their present state. If they are affluent, 
great and happy here, we are apt to suppose that this will al- 
ways be their condition. Such worldly distinctions have a 
great impression on the mind ; and if these persons do not 
appear publicly on the side of piety, many seem to think that 
religion is of little consequence, and that we can be truly 
safe and respectable without it. By things remaining as they 
were, they think it will always be thus. But with a multitude 



12 " Sermons on Various Subjects, Doctrinal, Experimental and Practical, by 
Nathan Strong, Pastor of the North Presbyterian Church in Hartford, Connec- 
ticut." Vol. i, Hartford, Hudson and Goodwin, 179S. Vol. ii, Hartford, Printed 
by John Babcock for Oliver D. and I. Cooke, 1800. 
44 



346 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

of men, there will be an amazing and an awful change. From 
boundless wealth, and all the means of a gay and amusing 
life, they will go empty-handed, naked and friendless into 
the eternal world ; and there without a comforter meet the 
justice of a long-suffering and abused Judge. From power 
and office and influence, which they supposed to be their own 
exclusively, and on which they depended for protection, they 
they will go defenceless to a state of woe. It is difficult, for 
those who possess these earthly advantages, to conceive that 
they shalL sink to such ruin and fall far below those whom 
they now despise. But if the word of God is to be credited 
there will in very many cases be this change. God seeth not 
as man seeth, and he judgeth not on the principles of human 
pride. He is not resisted in his way, nor can the present in- 
fluence of men change the course of his power. He is as 
much the creator, proprietor and judge of the rich and pow- 
erful man, as he is of the poor and of the weak. He is as 
much the father of one as he is of the other. The interests of 
each are equally dear in his sight — and with Him there is no 
partiality on account of earthly advantages. Those who have 
the fewest advantages and have made the best use of them, 
may still say, we are unprofitable servants ; and those who 
have made an improper use, deserve to be cast down as a 
punishment for their misimprovement. 

O, Reader, thou wilt be strangely surprised, on enter- 
ing the invisible world, to see how the comparative conditions 
of men are altered from what they now are. Many a Laza- 
rus ; many afflicted, distressed ones ; many who were friend- 
less upon earth ; who were despised and communed only with 
God and Christ ; who wished to retire from the show and 
temptation of the world, lest they should be ensnared ; whose 
pleasures were in reading the word of God, and in their 
closets, and in administering to the necessities of those who 
were poor and unobserved in life like themselves ; many such 
thou wilt find in the place of angels — in the company of 
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. How many such thou wilt find 
purified by the blood of Christ and sanctified by his Spirit, so 



1774-1816.] STRONG AS PREACHER AND WRITER. 347 

as to be without spot or stain in the presence of the Lord ! 
His servants, his messengers, his ministers and his honored 
ones in the kingdom of glory ! On earth they received evil 
things, but in heaven they are comforted — they have become 
kings and priests unto the Lord, and pillars in his everlasting 
temple! Such will be the fruit of the redeeming blood of 
Jesus, and he will see of the travail of his soul and be satis- 
fied with the glory that is given to the members of his spir- 
itual body. The higher they are raised from the low and 
despised condition they had here on earth, the more the 
riches, the fullness and the sovereignty of his grace will be 
forever adored. 

As some will be thus purified and confessed and exalted 
forever in the presence of the Father and before his holy 
angels ; so how awfully will many sink from the highest ad- 
vantages of earth to the lowest place in the pains of eternity ! 
How many who carried with them a great breadth of influence 
in the concerns of this life ; who had the adjustment of other 
men's properties according to their will, their prejudices 
and their own selfish designs ; who made laws for their 
fellow-creatures according to the feelings of their own pas- 
sions, without regard to mercy and equity ; who judged and 
executed with much worldly solemnity and importance, but not 
in the fear of the Almighty,, and with hearts of compassion ; 
who were filled with the profusion of the world and walked 
through life in the pride of self-consequence and in the 
parade which gratifies a vain heart ; who in these circum- 
stances forgot that they were sinners, were made of the same 
clay, must go to the same grave, must stand on the same 
level with their meaner neighbors before the glorious bar of 
God ; how many such, from every land and from every age 
of the world, will say : ' Father Abraham, send one of those 
who are now in thy bosom, that he may dip the tip of his fin- 
ger in water and cool my tongue ! ' ' Vol. ii, pp. 346-349. 

No man more than Dr. Strong contributed to the revival of 
earnest piety which marked so extensively the close of the 
last century and the beginning of the present in this State. 



348 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

But Dr. Strong's energies overflowed the bounds of his 
pulpit and parish work, and found other channels of expres- 
sion. In 1796 he published an elaborate treatise entitled 
The Doctrine of Eternal Misery reconcilable with tJie Infinite 
Benevolence of God. 13 This was occasioned by the posthum- 
ous publication of a volume entitled Calvinism Improved™ 
written by Rev. Dr. Joseph Huntington of Coventry, the 
town of Dr. Strong's birth, and which advocated the doctrine 
of universal salvation. The volume of Dr. Strong, intended 
primarily as a reply to Dr. Huntington's, is much more than 
that. It discusses the main points of the Calvinistic system, 
and is the most extended theological endeavor essayed by 
him ; and in relation to the special object the author had in 
view, ranks among the ablest treatises extant upon the pro- 
found and awful subject with which it deals. 

In 1799, moved by the impulse of desire for a class of 
hymns better adapted to the " happy revival of religion " 
which characterized the period, Dr. Strong published — in 
connection with Rev. Abel Flint and Rev. Joseph Steward, 
a Deacon of the First Church — a hymn-book known as The 



13 " The Doctrine of Eternal Misery reconcilable with the Infinite Benevo- 
lence of God, and a Truth plainly asserted in the Christian Scriptures, by Na- 
than Strong, Pastor of the North Presbyterian Church in Hartford. Hartford, 
Printed by Hudson & Goodwin, 1796." 8vo, pp. i-xii, 1-408. 

14 "Calvinism Improved, or the Gospel illustrated as a System of Real Grace 
issuing in the Salvation of all Men," 1796. 

This volume of Dr. Huntington took the world of his day with surprise as he 
was not known to cherish the sentiments inculcated in it. Much the greater part 
of the edition is said to have been burned by one of his daughters. The gen- 
eral position of the writer is that the Atonement of Christ is commensurate, 
not only in its design, but in its actual practical efficiency, with the sins of all 
men. Dr. Joseph Huntington was born in Windham in 1735; graduated at 
Yale College in 1762; ordained at the First Church in Coventry, June 29, 
1763; died Dec. 25, 1794. One of Dr. Huntington's daughters was the wife of 
Rev. Dr. E. D. Griffin. One of his sons, Samuel, was Chief Justice and Gov- 
ernor of Ohio, and died in 1817. 



1774-1816.] STRONG AS PREACHER AND WRITER. 349 

Hartford Selection of Hymns. 1 '" The book attained a wide 
circulation and passed through many editions. Presumably 
it must have been used in Dr. Strong's own congregation ; 
but it is in evidence that as early as 18 12 the compilation 
made at the request of the General Association of Connecti- 
cut by President Dwight, in 1800, was employed in this 
Society. Of the Hartford Selection however, a competent 
witness declares in 1833, "It has been printed in greater 
numbers, has been diffused more extensively, and has im- 
parted more alarm to the sinner, and more consolation to the 
saint, than any other compilation of religious odes in this 
country, during a period of nearly thirty years." 16 

Still more important to this Church's welfare and to the 
welfare of the churches generally, was Dr. Strong's agency 
in behalf of Missions. At a meeting of the Hartford North 
Association at Farmington, Oct. 3, 1797, the ministers 
present 17 voted as follows : 



15 " The Hartford Selection of Hymns. From the most approved authors. 
To which are added a number never before published. Compiled by Nathan 
Strong, Abel Flint, and Joseph Steward. Hartford : Printed by John Babcock, 
1799." The eighth edition was published in 1821. 

16 Rev. Luther Hart in Quarterly Spectator, Sept., 1833, pp. 344-345. The 
Hartford Selection contained several of Dr. Strong's own hymns, among which 
the one hundred and seventieth was pronounced by the writer last quoted " one 
of the most interesting metrical compositions in our language ; " a judgment 
with which even an ardent admirer of Dr. Strong's abilities may be pardoned 
if he cannot agree. Two stanzas must suffice : 

" Sinner behold I've heard thy groan, 
I know thy heart, thy life I've known : 
I've seen thy hope from grace proclaim'd, 
Thy trembling fear when Sinai flam'd. 

To me the mighty God attend, 
In me behold the sinner's friend ; 
'Twas I who gave thy conscience voice, 
Thou hast oppos'd by sinful choice." 

17 Nathan Strong, Aaron Church, Rufus Hawley, Seth Sage, Nathan Perkins, 
Abel Flint, Wm. F. Miller, Whitefield Cowles, Isaac Porter, and Joseph Wash- 
burn. 



350 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

" We resolve ourselves into a Missionary Society for the 
purpose of collecting funds from the pious and benevolently 
disposed, to support missionaries who may carry the glad 
tidings of salvation among our brethren in the borders of the 
wilderness. An ardent wish to diffuse the knowledge of 
Christian doctrines and Christian morals as far as may be in 
our power, impels us to adopt this as a temporary expedient, 
till some more general plan may be formed, either by the 
general Association or in some other way. One inducement 
besides the general desire to advance the cause of our divine 
Redeemer and the present aspect of Providence in Zion, is 
that we have a missionary 18 now in the Western settlements, 
acting under our direction for whose support competent 
funds are not provided. We hold ourselves ready to coalesce 
with a more general society for Missions, whenever any shall 
be formed in this State." 

By the next October, 1798, the General Association hav- 
ing organized the Missionary Society of Connecticut, the 
Hartford North Association voted to " cease to continue as 
a missionary society and joyfully join the general society." 

Dr. Strong had been one of the committee of the General 
Association to draft its Constitution, and was one of its 
Directors, and a life-long supporter of its work. 

It was largely his interest in this Society and the Missions 
supported by it, that induced him to project and largely to 
edit the Connecticut Evangelical Magazine. Rev. Luther 
Hart, who was in a position to know the facts in the case, 
says : 19 

"The plan of this work originated with Dr. Strong, and 
the labor of conducting it devolved chiefly on him. It was 
continued fifteen years, and amounted to as many volumes. 



18 Probably Rev. Seth Williston, who had been ordained by the Association, 
June 6, 1797, "to the work of the evangelical ministry at large .... in order 
tha»: he might be more extensively useful in the new settlements." 

19 Quarterly Spectator, Sept., 1833, pp. 345-347. 



1774-1816.] MISSIONARY AFFAIRS. 35! 

During the first seven years some ten or twelve of the prin- 
cipal divines in different parts of the State were associated 
with him in the editorial department ; but the duty of pro- 
curing and revising the matter to be inserted was performed 
principally by himself. After the commencement of the 
new series, which, though the same work still, was called 
" the Evangelical Magazine and Religious Intelligencer," and 
extended to eight volumes, he had no regular editorial assist- 
ance, except during the last three years The number 

of copies printed during the first five years averaged 3,730 
annually. All the net proceeds of the magazine were 
sacredly devoted to the permanent fund of the Connecticut 
Missionary Society. In six years there had been paid into 
the Treasury $7,353. And although the number of subscrib- 
ers constantly diminished from the year 1806, yet the total 
avails paid over to the Society amounted to 11,520 dollars." 

Under the impulse of this powerful ministry, attended as 
it was by large accessions to the membership of the Church, 
this First Ecclesiastical Society felt moved, in 1802, to sub- 
scribe toward a permanent " Fund for Parochial uses," on 
the following conditions : 

" First, the sum of Fifteen Hundred dollars at least to be 
raised by gratuitous subscriptions and added to the present 
Society Fund. 

" Second, the Fund, principal and interest as it accrues, to 
be placed from time to time on Loan without any part being 
expended till it amounts to Seven Thousand Dollars ; that 
sum to be afterwards kept entire as a Society Fund, the 
interest thereof to be appropriated and applied for the Sup- 
port of the Ministry in the Society." 

The subscription prospered. Forty-seven hundred and 
nine dollars were pledged, and the Society voted that " the 
names of the subscribers and the sums respectively annexed, 
be recorded at length in the records of the Society." 20 This 



20 See Appendix XL 



352 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

fund met with the not unusual fate of funds when a Society 
gets short of money and most of the donors are dead, as 
there will be occasion hereafter to see. 

Encouraged by success in establishing the fund for the 
support of the ministry, the Society set about the undertak- 
ing of a new meeting-house. The old house, dedicated in 
1739, had become scanty and dilapidated. A committee 
appointed to consider the subject, Dec. 11, 1804, reported, 
March 22, 1805, and the Society voted at that date — 

" That a new Meeting-House be built for this Society at 
such place as the County Court shall affix, on or near the 
ground on which the present meeting-house stands, provided 
the moneys for building the same can be raised by donation 
and by the sale of Pews and Slips, and that George Goodwin, 
Abram Cook, Richard Goodman, Peter W. Gallaudet & 
James Hosmer, be a Committee to build said meeting house : 
that the dimensions thereof including the Projection for the 
Steeple or Tower, be one hundred and two feet by sixty-four 
feet : that the walls be of Brick and the Roof covered with 
Slate .... But said Committee are instructed not to dispose 
of the present meeting-house nor proceed to build such new 
Meeting-House, until they have raised by donation and sale 
of Pews and Slips a sum sufficient to build such meeting 
house." 

Thus charged with their duty, the Committee set about 
the work. They had Mr. P. W. Gallaudet as their Treasurer 
and Accountant, and opened a subscription, which reached 
$17,302.13. These subscriptions were to reckon against the 
price of pews when pews came to be sold. The Committee 
sold the old meeting-house to John Leffingwell, on Dec. 2, 
1805, for three hundred and five dollars, "all the brick and 
stone, Bell and rope, arid Clock and clock-weights excepted, 21 



21 The bell and clock were temporarily placed in the tower of the Episcopal 
Church. 



1774-1816.] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 353 

. . the new timber put in to secure the building also 
excepted ; " and the destruction of the old house at once 
began. 22 Contracts for brick and stone and timber and other 
building material were made in the fall and winter, and 
Thursday, March 6, 1806, the stone work of the foundation 
of the new house was begun. 

The enlarged size and the partially altered position of the 
new structure demanded a grant from the town of a part of 
the burying-ground; which was secured by an exchange of 
deeds conveying to the town a part of the ground formerly 
covered by the previous edifice. 23 That edifice had undoubt- 
edly been built over some of the graves in the old burying- 
ground purchased by the town in 1640, and more were 
covered by the new structure, necessitating the removal of 
some monuments. 24 

The work progressed with vigor, and with some alcoholic 
aid 25 after the fashion of the times, and the month of Decem- 
ber, 1807, saw the congregation ready to remove from the 



22 At the Celebration Exercises of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of 
the Church, Dea. Rowland Swift said (referring to Mr. Edward Goodwin and 
this destruction of the old meeting-house) : " There is one of our present con- 
gregation who remembers some incidents of that occasion — now almost four 
score years past. The leave-taking of the old pew, fixed in his child-memory 
by the sober and reluctant manner of those-who led him home from the last 
service there; the rescue of the little old foot-rest or cricket which for preserva- 
tion he brought away in his arms — a rather burthensome trophy to the tiny boy; 
the fall of the steeple on the following day ; the suspense that awed him so 
when the long ropes were manned and while they straightened with the strong 
and steady pull ; the strange and startling shimmer of light upon the old weather- 
cock which swayed crazily once or twice as the shout of them that triumphed 
arose, and then pitched forward and zig-zag on its flight to the further side of 
the street." Mr. Goodwin attended the exercises of the celebration on Oct. 1 1 
and 12, 1883; but died on the 25th of the same month. 

23 Town Records, vol. xxii, pp. 359-362. t 

24 The graves must have come well out toward the present Main Street. In 
excavating in 1883 to admit water to the motor of the organ, human remains 
were found opposite the southeast corner of the edifice, near the portico. 

25 The payments for liquor amount to about $150. 

45 



354 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

theatre in Theatre Street (now Temple), where they had 
worshiped in the interim between the two meeting-houses ; 
and on the 3d of December the house was dedicated. A 
contemporaneous account of the event says : 26 

" On Thursday last the New Meeting-House in the North 
Society in this city was dedicated. The beauty of the day, 
the Novelty of the occasion and the celebrity of the preacher 
attracted a great concourse of people from this and the 

neighboring towns Several hymns composed for the 

occasion were sung, and followed by an Anthem of Handels. 
The singing, under the direction of Mr. Roberts, animated 
the Christian and delighted those who are charmed with the 
melody of sounds." 

Rev. Mr. Flint, of the Second Church, offered the Intro- 
ductory Prayer ; Rev. Dr. Perkins, of West Hartford, the 
Concluding Prayer ; Dr. Strong made the Prayer of Dedi- 
cation, and preached the Sermon from Ps. xciii, 5 : Holiness 
becometh thine house, O Lord, forever. The sermon was 
published. 27 

The house thus completed and dedicated had square pews 
round the walls, both on the floor and in the galleries ; slips 
in the centre of the house below, and in front of the galleries 
above. Two pews below, one on either side, were furnished 
with ornamental canopies, and dignified as the " Governor's 
Pews," the canopies remaining until 183 1. The pulpit, the 
height of which is said to have been determined by Dr. 
Strong, was supported by fluted columns, and ascended by 
spiral stairs. 

A very handsome pulpit Bible with heavy, gold clasps and 
corners was presented to the Society in April 18 12, by Mr. 



28 Connecticut Coitrant, Dec. 9, 1807. 

27 "A Sermon delivered at the Consecration of the New Brick Meeting 
House in Hartford, December 3, 1807, by Nathan Strong. Hartford : Printed 
by Hudson and Goodwin, 1808." 



1774-1816.] NEW MEETING-HOUSE. 355 

Reuben Smith — Dr. Strong's brother-in-law and former 
business partner — in memory of Dr. Solomon Smith, once 
Deacon of this Church. This Bible has been ever since in 
use. Some vandal stole the gold corners and clasps, and 
silver ones were substituted. But these, too, were removed, 
because too bulky. 28 

No artificial warmth, save the traditional " foot-stoves " of 
our New England grandmothers, tempered the rigor of the 
winter services until 181 5, when stoves were authorized by 
vote of the Society. 

The responsibility and expenses of the new meeting-house 
were laid on the building committee, aided by the sales and 
rentals of pews to members of the congregation. The dis- 
posal of the sittings had been as satisfactory as could have 
been anticipated, 29 but the cost of the building, $32,014.26, 
exceeded the amount realized from the sales by about $4,291. 
The committee had for their security certain unsold pews 
and slips on the floor and in the gallery, from the rental of 
which they offset, as far as they could, their debt to the Hart- 
ford Bank and to individuals. The amount of their deficiency 
was gradually decreased by additional sales ; but though the 
personal claims of the committee for services were adjusted 
in 18 12, their chief obligation to the bank, though often dis- 
cussed, was rather ungenerously postponed till December 
181 5, when the Society voted to "assume the debt of $2,000 



28 Mr. Charles Seymour recalls the fact of seeing written on the gallery wall 
of the meeting-house, this inscription: "John Ellsworth, debtor to the First 
Ecclesiastical Society for gold corners and clasps of Pulpit Bible, $100;" 
which inscription not obscurely intimated that the then acting Sexton of the 
church was not altogether unaware where the Bible fastenings and ornaments 
went to. 

29 See Appendix XII for statement of sales and rentals to March 27, 1809, 
with ground plan of the church edifice, copied from a parchment one, of ap- 
parently contemporaneous date. 



356 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

at the Hartford Bank," on condition of receiving a surrender 
from the committee of the slips and pews standing in their 
names. 30 

Entered into its new house of worship, which was regarded 
as a rather splendid specimen of ecclesiastical architecture — 
and so described by President Dwight in his Travels 31 — the 
Church was still graciously favored with Divine influences. 

In 1808, and again shortly before Dr. Strong's death, from 
181 3 to 18 1 5, powerful awakenings in his congregation bore 
witness to the efficacy of the truth so cogently and persua- 
sively preached by him. Eighty-eight persons united with 
the Church in 1808, the year after entering into the new meet- 
ing-house ; and one hundred and twenty-eight joined as the 
result of the revival of 1813-14. It is pleasant to know, 
especially in view of Dr. Strong's age at this last-mentioned 
period, that the subjects of the awakening at that time were 
mostly quite young people, and some of them children, and 
that Dr. "Strong confided in' the reality of their Christian 
experience, and advocated their admission to the Church 
against the objections of some of the members, who were 
unused to so youthful candidates. 

These revival meetings of the early part of the century, 
seemed to demand a form of religious services and a place 
of religious gathering, such as the Sunday or occasional 
week day evening services in the somewhat stately church- 
edifice, lately occasionally opened, could not supply. 

Evening meetings at private houses were first resorted to, 
with some suspicion and objection on the part of some con- 
servative people, but these did not supply the rising need. 



30 Some account of the subsequent sale of a part of these seats may be 
found in the latter portion of Appendix XII. 

31 Vol. i, pp. 235-6. 



1774-1816.] THE CONFERENCE HOUSE. 357 

Individuals undertook what the Society at this time would 
hardly have agreed upon. Mr. Colton — shortly after Deacon 
Colton — offered the corner of his lot, a little back from Tem- 
ple Street, for a Conference building. A memorandum of 
agreement about laying the foundations, dated June 20, 1813, 
remains; endorsed March 22, 18 14, by a certification over 
the hands of Josiah Beckwith, David Knox, and Andrew 
Kingsbury, that "the Conference meeting House was built 
conformable to the above agreement." The edifice was form- 
ally transferred to the Society in 18 15. But doubtless from 
some time in early 18 14, the social meetings of the revival 
epoch used to be held there. . And the place was then, and 
in the days of a minister to come after Dr. Strong, a memo- 
rable one for the souls spiritually " born there." The old 
building, turned to servile uses and forgotten by the present 
generation, still stands, though somewhat changed in shape 
and built about by other structures. 

It is greatly to be regretted that the perishing, or more 
probably the non-creation of any Church records — except a 
few memoranda by Mr. Barzillai Hudson, long a member of 
the Prudential Committee — during the entire period of Dr. 
Strong's ministry, makes it impossible to trace precisely who 
they were, or in what numbers, who united with the Church 
at any epoch of this pastorate previous to 1808. Especially 
to be regretted is it, that it is impossible accurately to dis- 
cover the working of the revival spirit upon the half-way- 
covenant system in this Church which had practiced it so 
long. 

It is doubtful if that system was ever distinctly abrogated 
in Dr. Strong's day. The late Thomas S. Williams and wife 
both owned the covenant, it is believed in his time, and only 



358 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

made such a profession as brought them into the Church's 
full communion in 1834, in the days of his successor. 

Throughout most of this pastorate the Church was popu- 
larly known as Presbyterian. The Pastor called himself, as 
has been observed on the title pages of his published ser- 
mons, " Pastor of the North Presbyterian Church." Presby- 
terians in the Middle States and Connecticut Congregation- 
alists had been drawn together ever since 1766 32 by their 
common opposition to the establishment of the Episcopate ; 
and this union of feeling had been strengthened by the events 
of the war, and the Tory attitude of the Episcopal churches. 
The Presbyterian Assembly and the Connecticut Associa- 
tion exchanged delegates ; members passed freely from one 
fellowship to the other at a period when the North Associa- 
tion in Hartford could "unanimously" resolve 33 that it was 
" not consistent to dismiss and recommend the members of 
our churches to the Methodists ; " and in the mind of the 
general public, and even in that of most of the ministers, 
there was no difference between Congregationalism and 
Presbyterianism. 

This idea found official utterance in the action of Hartford 
North Association, February 5, 1799: — 

" This Association gives information to all whom it may 
concern, that the Constitution of the Churches in the State 
of Connecticut, founded on the common usage, and the con- 
fession of. faith, heads of agreement, and articles of church 
discipline, adopted at the earliest period of the Settlement of 
this State, is not Congregational, but contains the essentials 
of the church of Scotland, or Presbyterian Church in Amer- 
ica, particularly, as it gives a decisive power to Ecclesias- 
tical Councils ; and a Consociation consisting of Ministers 



zt See ante, p. 324. 

33 Oct. 17, 1800. MSS. records. 



1774-1816.] "NORTH PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH." 359 

and Messengers or a lay representation from the churches is 
possessed of substantially the same authority as a Presbytery. 
The judgements, decisions and censures in our Churches and 
in the Presbyterian are mutually deemed valid. The Churches 
therefore, of Connecticut at large and in our districts in par- 
ticular, are not now and never were from the earliest period 
of our settlement, Congregational Churches, according to the 
ideas and forms of Church order contained in the book of 
discipline called the Cambridge Platform ; there are, how- 
ever, Scattered over the State, perhaps ten or twelve 
Churches which are properly called Congregational, agreeable 
to the rules of Church discipline in the book above men- 
tioned. Sometimes indeed the associated churches of Con- 
necticut are loosely and vaguely, tho improperly, termed 
Congregational." 3i 

When fifteen ministers in an Association like Hartford 
North, present at this action, could so misstate history and 
forget the principles of the first founders, one ceases to won- 
der that the people generally were not disturbed at being 
called Presbyterians, or set a wondering when their Pastors 
put on the title pages of their publications, " Pastor of the 
Presbyterian Church " of Hartford or Windsor. One may 
wonder, however, what Thomas Hooker would have said to 
this implication of his successor, that Presbyterianism was 
the form of polity he came to this new country to plant ; and 
to this amazing statement that the Constitution founded on 
the "heads of agreement and articles of church discipline" 
was adopted "at the earliest period of the Settlement of the 
State." Whatever the merits or demerits of the Saybrook 
system, such a declaration of its antiquity takes one with 
surprise. 

One characteristic of Dr. Strong, by which he was emi- 
nently distinguished, cannot be passed over unspoken of — his 



3i MSS. Records. 



360 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

wit. Dr. Strong's pulpit exercises were invariably marked 
by great solemnity and reverence. His many printed efforts 
contain no indication of humor. But in social intercourse he 
was a man of boundless pleasantry. One of the most admir- 
ing of his eulogists says of him: "It was difficult for him to 
subdue his almost irresistible propensity to disburthen his 
prolific imagination of the ideas, whether delicate or gro- 
tesque, which rushed upon him with the rapidity of lightning. 
After leading in prayer in the presence of the Legislature of 
the State, or the Municipal Courts, and bringing tears from 
many an eye by the solemnity and fervor of his manner, it 
was well if in his way out of the house, he did not by some 
sally of wit, either ludicrous or severe, occasion a burst of 
laughter on every side." ' 5 The old and often applied remark, 
"When he is in the pulpit he ought never to come out, 
and when he is out he never ought to go in," was frequently 
made respecting him. Two or three of the stories, out of 
many lodged in the minds of the older inhabitants of Hart- 
ford, may here be recorded. 

Shortly after Dr. Strong's reception of his Doctorate de- 
gree from the College of New Jersey in 1801, he met Rev. 
Mr. Flint of the Second Church. Mr. Flint espying him 
from quite a distance, took off his hat and with considerable 
demonstration of reverence said " Good morning, Doctor 
Strong." Dr. Strong responded, a little embarrassed, " Why 
yes, brother Flint, the New Jersey College seems to have 
done a rather foolish thing." " O never mind it," said Mr. 
Flint, u I observe they make Doctors of almost everything 
now-a-days." "Of everything but Flint-stones?' was Dr. 
Strong's rejoinder. 

Hon. David Daggett was attending Court in Hartford, and 



86 Rev. Luther Hart, Quarterly Spectator, Sept. 1833. 



1774-1816.] CHARACTERISTICS OF STRONG. ^fa 

going one Saturday afternoon into Hudson and Goodwin's 
book-store, found Dr. Strong there. " Well, Doctor," he said, 
" I think I shall go over to East Hartford and hear Mr. Yates 
to-morrow ; we can't expect much from you, away from your 
study on Saturday afternoon." " Do, Sir, do," was Dr. 
Strong's reply. "I am going to preach to Christians to- 
morrow." 

Dr. Bellamy, the very distinguished but somewhat pompous 
divine of Bethlem, and very much Dr. Strong's senior in 
years, called upon him in Hartford. On the Pastor's appear- 
ing in answer to the knock, Dr. Bellamy, glancing into the 
apartment, said, "Ah, here you are, brother Strong, all swept 
and garnished." "Yes, yes," replied Strong, "quite ready 
for evil spirits to enter ; walk in Dr. Bellamy." 

Col. Dyer of Windham, who had been Judge for some 
years, had been dropped from office by the legislature. 
Standing in the lobby with several other out-of-office asso- 
ciates, he accosted Dr. Strong as the latter came out from 
having offered prayer at the opening of the session, " Can't 
you pray for us, too, Doctor ? " " I never pray for the dead," 
answered Dr. Strong. 

Dr. Strong on one occasion had a callow young minister to 
preach for him, intending that he should do so both parts of 
the day. But sitting in his room a little before the afternoon 
service, he saw a good many of his dissatisfied congregation 
passing by his house on their way, obviously, to the Second 
Church. The annoyed doctor said to his youthful helper, 
" My dear brother, I do wish Brother Flint's congregation 
could hear that sermon you preached for my people to-day ; 
and, late as it is, I think it can be done." Despatching a 

messenger to Dr. Flint, he secured a prompt invitation for a 

46 



362 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

repetition of the morning discourse to the South congrega- 
tion ; and Dr. Strong conducted his own service with an 
inward enjoyment of having paid the runaway hearers of his 
flock in a proper coin. 

But though Dr. Strong's power of repartee made him a 
formidable opponent, he was a man of most tender sensibili- 
ties. When his boy's body was brought to his house from 
the river, late in the evening of the day on which his son 
was drowned, the bereaved father with marvelous self-com- 
mand met the crowd gathered about his door and made them 
a most affecting address. But his friend, Rev. Thomas Rob- 
bins, says he "never crossed the Connecticut River after the 
event;" and that "years subsequently" he enquired about 
the bridge and causeway— which had been built soon after 
his son's fatal calamity — saying to Mr. Robbins that " he had 
never seen them." 

On the approach of the last considerable revival in his 
ministry, Mr. Robbins says, when "he became satisfied that 
the Holy Spirit was in the midst of his congregation, his 
mind was so much agitated with alternate hopes and fears 
for a fortnight, that he did not — as he stated to a friend — 
have an hour of uninterrupted sleep at a time." 

Dr. Strong was a man of great but rather unmethodical 
industry. He rose early, and always had some pressing 
work on hand. His faculties were in a wonderful degree at 
command. He wrote with great rapidity, seldom revising 
anything ; somewhat carelessly as to style, but always with 
vigor. He is said, even in his last four or five years, to have 
preached more sermons in the time, than any other minister 
in the State. 36 



30 Besides the publications which have been spoken of in the foregoing pages, 
Dr. Strong published a Sermon at the execution of Richard Doane, June 10, 



1774-1816.] STRONG'S DECLINE AND DEATH. 363 

But the time for the termination of this splendid pastorate 
drew on. At a meeting of the Society, held April 17, 18 16 
— "opened with a devout and solemn prayer by Revd. Joseph 
Steward " — the Society's committee presented a letter which 
they had on the 10th of the month addressed to Dr. Strong, 
suggesting the procuring for him "an assistant" in the min- 
istry, and Dr. Strong's reply thereto. Dr. Strong's answer 
is dated April nth. He says: 

"It was with pleasure unfeigned that I received your letter 

of the 10th on the subject of a colleague Pastor 

With respect to bringing the object proposed into execution 
I would suggest the following things. 

" 1. That a permanent provision be made for the wants 
of my old age and the decent support of a family the short 
time I can live. If I were not perfectly poor this would not 
be the first article mentioned. 37 

" 2. I should wish the Colleague to be the presiding, man- 
aging and officiating Pastor 

" 3. With respect to the person for the Colleague I wish 
to excuse myself from all advice and agency 

" Gentlemen, I thank you for your communication to me, 
and unite my prayers with yours for the blessing of God on 
this transaction." 



1797 ; a Fast Sermon, April 6, 1798 ; ^Thanksgiving Sermon, Nov. 29, 1798 ; a 
Discourse on the death of George Washington, delivered Dec. 27, 1799; a 
Thanksgiving Sermon, Nov. 27, 1800; a Sermon at the Funeral of Rev. James 
Cogswell, D.D., Jan. 6, 1807 ; a Sermon before the Female Beneficent Society, 
Oct. 4, 1809; a Sermon on the Mutability of Human Life, March 10, 181 1 ; a 
Fast Ser?non, July 23, 181 2 ; a Sermon on the use of Time, Jan. 10, 181 3 ; a Ser- 
mon at the Funeral of Hon. Chauncey Goodrich, who died Aug. 18, 181 5; and a 
Sermon — the last published in his lifetime — preached Jan. 7, 1816, the year he 
died. The text is, " Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might, for 
there is ito work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither 
thou goest." Thirty-four members of his congregation had died the previous 
year. 

37 This statement of Dr. Strong was literally accurate. The administrators 
of his estate (he left no will) after paying a few debts to the amount of about a 
hundred dollars, returned to the Court, July 28, 1818, the valuation of the 
property left by him, as $48.60. 



364 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

Somehow or other the rumor got currency that this action 
of the committee was unwelcome to Dr. Strong, and on 
the 16th of April they addressed him a second letter, men- 
tioning the rumor and asking a frank reply. Dr. Strong 
answered the next day. He said : 

"Gentlemen, To your note of yesterday I cheerfully reply. 
You are sensible that the subject under consideration did 
not originate from any influence of mine either directly or 
indirectly ; on which account it seems more necessary I 
should answer you explicitly. I have heard it suggested that 
I rather tacitly submitted than heartily approved the meas- 
ure. This is totally a misapprehension. If it can be effected 
with brotherly love it will give me great satisfaction." 

The Doctor then went on to suggest the expediency of 
going about the undertaking at once, while their pastor was 
still able to labor, in view of the fact that " the state of a 
people left destitute is always hazardous." 

The Society therefore, on April 24th, voted "that the sum 
of eight hundred and fifty dollars be paid annually to the 
Rev. Dr. Strong during his life," and " that the Society do 
proceed to take suitable measures for settling a Colleague 
with the Rev. Dr. Strong." S9 



38 It seems the more needful to set down these negotiations with Dr. Strong 
in some detail, because the idea of his unwillingness to have a colleague has 
become a sort of tradition, owing probably to an alleged anecdote of Dr. 
Strong in connection with the matter. A late number of the New England 
Historical and Genealogical Register (Oct. 1883) repeats this tradition of Dr. 
Strong's unwillingness ; and of his reply to the enquiry who he would recom- 
mend as a colleague, " Old Mr. Marsh of Wethersfield '; " and says, "After this 
Dr. Strong was allowed to live and die in peace, as sole pastor until his death." 
That Dr. Strong made such a reply to some enquirer is altogether likely ; it 
was in his characteristic style. It was all the more amusing because Dr. 
Marsh was not only six years older than himself, but had the year previous 
(18 1 5) broken down in health and required assistance for his own pulpit. Dr. 
Marsh wore a white, full-bottomed wig, said to be the last worn in New Eng- 
land. But the humor of Dr. Strong's joke, does not need the misstatement of 
the facts concerning his relations to his parish and to the colleague question. 



1774-1816.] STRONG'S DECLINE AND DEATH. 365 

Attempts were immediately begun. One incidental token 
of the impending change was a vote, December 24, 18 16, to 
"lower the pulpit" whose lofty height, fixed it is said by Dr. 
Strong, was probably objected to by some of the persons 
who preached from it. The desired colleague however had 
not been secured, and on the day following the above vote, 
December 25 th, the Pastor died, in the sixty-ninth year of 
his age and the forty-third of his ministry. Dr. Strong's 
health had been precarious for some time, but he preached in 
his own pulpit twice on Sunday, November 10th, the text of 
the morning sermon being Hebrews ix, 27 : It is appointed 
to men once to die, but after this the judgment ; and in the 
afternoon Philippians i, 23-24 : For I am in a strait betwixt 
two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Chfist, which is 
far better. Nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more needful 
for you,. Both sermons were, some years subsequently, 
printed in the Christian Spectator.™ 

39 July, 1824, and Feb., 1825. While these pages were passing through the 
press a bundle of MSS. notes of sermons, preached in the First Church, and 
reported by the hand of Dea. Aaron Colton for about sixty years, from 1780 to 
1840, came into the Church's possession from Rev. President Chapin of Beloit, 
grandson of the deacon. As abstracts of the sermons themselves they are ex- 
cessively meagre. But the record of dates is in many cases valuable as deter- 
mining matters perhaps otherwise unascertainable. In this particular instance 
of Dr. Strong's last appearance in the pulpit, Dea. Colton's notes enable us to 
correct the statement made by Dr. Sprague (Annals, ii, 36), that "but one Sab- 
bath" intervened between Dr. Strong's last public ministrations and his death. 
Dea. Colton's notes show that seven Sabbaths intervened, during which time 
the pulpit was supplied by Revs. Messrs. Robbins, Steward, and McEwen, and 
by Dr. Perkins. These notes show also several periods of protracted absence 
from his pulpit by Dr. Strong, e.g., the greater part of the year 1781, during 
most of which time the pulpit was supplied by Rev. Mr. Perry; presumably 
Rev. David Perry of Harwinton, whose son, Rev. David C. Perry, married 
Dr. Strong's daughter. 

These notes also show quite clearly that there prevailed in Dr. Strong's day, 
and in that portion of Dr. Hawes' time, also, which they cover, a very much 
more frequent habit of ministerial exchange in pulpit service, than exists at 
present. The fraternity of the churches was in this way illustrated to a degree 
which would astonish, and it is to be conjectured, sometimes irritate a modern 
congregation. 



366 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1774-1816. 

Funeral services were held in the church-edifice where 
he had so long ministered. Rev. Dr. Nathan Perkins of 
West Hartford, his associate in the ministry of Hartford 
County from the first, preached the sermon on the occa- 
sion. 40 The body was laid in the North burying-ground — 
being the first of the Hartford Pastors to be laid elsewhere 
than in the old burying-ground behind the church-edifice — 
separating him thus from the members of his family, who 
lie in the old soil. A monument in the form of a sarcopha- 
gus was erected over his burial-place, by the people of his 
Society, 41 bearing the following inscription : 

BENEATH THIS MONUMENT ARE DEPOSITED THE REMAINS OF THE 

REV. NATHAN STRONG, D.D., 

Pastor of the First Ecclesiastical Society in Hartford. 

Endowed with rare talent, and e?ninent for leamiiig and eloquence, he 

zealously devoted himself to the cause of religion j and after 

many years of faithful service, approved and blessed 

by the Holy Spirit, he fell asleep i?i Jesus, 

deeply la7nented by his friends, the 

people of his charge, and the 

Church of Christ. 

Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labors. 



40 " A Sermon delivered at the Interment of the Rev. Nathan Strong, D.D., 
Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Hartford : who died Dec. 25, 1816, 
aged sixty-eight, and in the forty-third year of his ministry. By Nathan Per- 
kins, D.D., Pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church in Hartford. Published 
by request. The just shall be had in everlasting remembrance. Hartford, 
George Goodwin and Sons, Printers. 1817." 

41 The vote to erect the monument to Dr. Strong was passed at Society 
meeting, Dec. 22, 1817. It was at this meeting that Mr. Seth Terry (after- 
ward Dea. Terry of the Second Church) called attention to the neglected, 
inscriptionless condition of Rev. Thomas Hooker's grave (see ante, p. 115, note), 
and secured the action of the Society for the uplifting of the fallen stone and 
the cutting thereon of the present inscription. 



- 







Oi^^JC^c/ 



CHAPTER XIV. 



JOEL HAWES AND HIS DAYS. 

In his communication to the Society responding to the 
offer of a colleague, Dr. Strong had excused himself " from 
all advice and agency" respecting the particular person to be 
secured. Nevertheless the committee consulted him on the 
matter, and two persons at least occupied the pulpit on the 
basis of his "approbation " or even at his "recommendation." 
One of these came before his death — Mr. Eleazer T. Fitch, 1 
then a student in Andover Seminary, who preached how- 
ever but a single Sunday, Nov. 3, 18 16. 

The other was Mr. Ebenezer Burgess, 2 then a young mathe- 
matical professor at the college in Burlington, Vermont. 
This latter gentleman, of whom Dr. Strong " had a high 
opinion," preached on seventeen occasions between January 
31 and March 9, 18 17, 3 occupying the pulpit six Sundays. 
Neither of these gentlemen however was called. Nor was 
Rev. Heman Humphrey, 4 who after Dr. Strong's death, 



1 Rev. Eleazer Thompson Fitch, D.D., born in New Haven, Jan. i, 1791 ; 
graduated, Yale College, 1810; at Andover Seminary, 1817; Pastor of the 
Church in Yale College, 1817-1852 ; Professor of Homiletics, Yale Divinity 
School, 1822-1861 ; died at New Haven, Jan. 31, 1871, aged 80. 

2 Rev. Ebenezer Burgess, D.D., born April 1, 1790, Wareham, Mass.; gradu- 
ated, Brown University, 1809; Professor, University of Vermont, 1815-1817; 
Pastor, Dedham, Mass., 1821 till death, Dec. 5, 1870. 

3 Dea. Colton's Notes; who minutes some of these services as " Thursday eve- 
ning" or "Conference Room." 

4 Rev. Heman Humphrey, D.D., born in Simsbury, March 26, 1779; gradu- 
ated at Yale College, 1805 ; ordained at Fairfield, 1807 ; installed at Pittsfield, 
Mass., 1817 ; President of Amherst College, 1823-1845 ; died 1861. 



368 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

preached seven Sabbaths, beginning June 1 and ending 
July 15, 1817. 5 

Meantime, in the interregnum between the decease of the 
old Pastor and the settlement of his successor, the pulpit 
was largely supplied by Rev. Joseph Steward, 6 a Deacon of 
the Church. 

The successful candidate appeared at last. Sunday, the 
28th of September 181 7, saw in the pulpit of this Society 
for the first time, a tall, awkward man of a little over twenty- 
seven years of age, who was destined to fill the second longest 
term of pastoral service in the two hundred and fifty years of 
its history. A member of this Church, now deceased, who 
well knew Dr. Strong, narrated to the present writer his 
vivid impressions of that Sabbath, and the sharp contrast 
he felt between the courtly and dignified bearing of the 
Pastor of his youth, and the ungainly, impulsive, red-ban- 
dannad occupant of his place. But he truthfully added the 
reproof administered to him by a pious old aunt to whom he 
ventured to suggest some of his feelings : " Remember my 
words, that is to be a very remarkable man." 7 



5 The honorarium for these services of the various occupants of the pulpit at 
this period, as appears by the Treasurer's account, was ten dollars a Sunday, 
with no account taken of Thursday lectures. The " candidates " were boarded 
at the house of the late Pastor, by his son Nathan, at the expense of the 
Society. 

6 Rev. Joseph Steward, born at Upton, Mass., Aug. 6, 1752; graduated, 
Dartmouth College ; studied divinity with Dr. Levi Hart, at Preston, Conn.; 
ordained an evangelist, and preached extensively in New England ; prevented 
by ill-health from assuming a regular pastorate; fixed his residence at Hartford, 
and learned painting under the instruction of Col. John Trumbull; established 
a "Museum" at Hartford; was chosen Deacon of the First Church in 1797; 
united with Drs. Strong and Flint in the compilation of the Hartford Selection 
of Hymns; died at Hartford, April 15 1822, greatly respected and beloved ; 
leaving a widow, Sarah, daughter of Rev. Samuel Mosely of Windham, and 
two (Sarah M. and Ann Jane) and perhaps more children. A Thanksgiving 
Sermon preached by Mr. Steward in the pulpit of the "First Presbyterian 
Church" of Hartford, Nov. 28, 1816, just before Dr. Strong's death, was pub- 
lished. 

7 Harvey Seymour. 



1818-1867.] JOEL HA WES. 369 

Joel Hawes, one of this Church's and Connecticut's most 
eminently useful ministers, was born at Medway, Massachu- 
setts, December 22, 1789. His father was a blacksmith and 
a farmer ; a man of tough, vigorous constitution, who lived 
to the age of eighty-three ; his mother to the age of seventy- 
seven. Neither of the parents was a professing Christian, 
and the household seems to have been trained without 
religious instruction. Joel's youth was passed amid associa- 
tions not very congenial to scholarly tastes or even favorable 
to mental improvement. He says of this period of his expe- 
rience, "The first years of my life were thrown away. I 
was a wild, hardy, reckless youth, delighting in hunting, fish- 
ing, trapping, and in rough, athletic sports ; all tending to 
invigorate my constitution, but adding nothing to my mental 
or moral improvement. Early instruction I had none." 

It was at about eighteen years of age, and while engaged 
in serving a period in a cloth-dressing establishment, that he 
experienced his first strong spiritual impressions, almost for 
the first time read the Bible, and became experimentally a 
Christian. He made confession of his faith by uniting with 
the church in Medway the first Sunday in May 1808, being 
at that time also baptized. His first impulse toward an 
education was derived from the suggestion of Miss Betsey 
Prentiss, a sister of Rev. Mr. Dickinson of Holliston, by 
whom he was employed in manual labor. 

Studying awhile in private, under the tuition of Rev. Dr. 
Crane of Northbridge, he entered Brown University in Sep- 
tember 1809. He worked his way through college, teaching 
school in winter, but by indefatigable industry and labor 
graduated September 1, 1813, second in rank in his class. 
He entered Andover Seminary in 18 13 ; dropped out a year 
to teach in Phillips Academy, and graduated in September 

47 



370 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

1817. He had been licensed to preach by the Essex Middle 
Association on May 13th previous, and followed his licensure 
by preaching several Sabbaths for Rev. Dr. Dana of New- 
buryport. Measures looking to his call to the pastorate in 
connection with Dr. Dana were in progress when he was 
invited to preach at this First Church in Hartford. He 
came here on the Saturday following his graduation, and 
preached his first sermon here on the succeeding Sunday. 
He preached six Sundays, 8 and was then requested by the 
Committee to preach six more. He did four. 

Having thus made trial of his gifts for ten Sabbaths, the 
Church, at a meeting presided over by Deacon Joseph 
Steward, and of which Mr. Seth Terry was Clerk, on the 
13th of January 18 18, voted " unanimously " to extend to 
Mr. Hawes "an Invitation to take the Pastoral Charge." 
With this action of the Church, the Society on the 20th of 
January concurred. 9 The salary tendered to Mr. Hawes 
was twelve hundred dollars, " so long as he shall continue to 
be the Minister of this Society." Seventeen churches were 



8 The text of his first sermon was John xv, 22 : " If I had not come and spoken 
unto them they had not had sin, but now they have no cloke for their sin." On 
Nov. 30th, he preached at Glastonbury, and good Deacon Colton followed him 
over there to hear him. 

9 The Call was signed by Isaac Bull, Joseph Steward, Aaron Chapin, Josiah 
Beckwith, Aaron Colton, Committee of the Church, and John Caldwell, Enoch 
Perkins, Normand Smith, Jonathan Edwards, Committee of the Society. 
Nothing is affirmed on the Society records as to its unanimity; but there seems 
to be evidence that however the vote may finally have been made, there was a 
good deal of division of sentiment as to the call. A paper was awhile since 
extant, and may be in existence still, containing a canvass of the Society on the 
question of the invitation, with each member's name marked on the negative or 
affirmative side of the question. The division was nearly equal, with a prepon- 
derance on the side of the call. Two gentlemen, at least, well known in Hart- 
ford, remember this paper, one of whom had it awhile in his possession. It 
seems probable that a more complete unanimity in the Church than in the 
Society respecting the call, determined the latter body to accede without 
recorded dissent on its minutes to the action of the former. 



1818-1867.I JOEL HAWES. ^71 

invited on the Council, which met March 4, 1818. An inter- 
esting letter written on the 24th of February preceding the 
Council, by Rev. David Parsons of Amherst, Mass., to his 
brother-in-law, Hon. Thomas S. Williams of Hartford, then 
in Congress, gives a contemporaneous glimpse of the man 
and the general situation. Mr. Parsons says : 

"The ordination of Mr. Hawes induces me to attempt 
being there. Hearing so many strictures I wish to see the 
man. Mr. Parkhurst our Preceptor, was a classmate at 
Andover and left at the same time. He says : ' He was a 
prime scholar, regarded the first in the school — a pious man, 
filled with holy zeal, and the most ready, able man at extem- 
poraneous performance at conference, that he ever heard.' 
Mr. Tenny observed that in a private circle at Hartford, Mr. 
Hawes says — ' Some say I preach false Doctrine, but as I 
am fully able to substantiate every sentiment by the Word of 
God, for this I am not sorry. Others say I am a very homely 
man, but as I had no hand in my formation, for this I am not 
sorry. Others say I am a very awkward, ungraceful, uncom- 
plaisant man ; — for this I am very sorry, and will endeavor 
to mend in my manners if possible ; and believe that being 
conversant with the polite set of the city of Hartford I stand 
a good chance,' A suspicion of his being an Emmonsite 
I believe the cause of inviting such an abominably large 
Council." 

In the public service of the ordination Prof. Fitch of Yale 
College offered the Introductory Prayer; Dr. Woods preached 
the Sermon, which was afterwards published, from Heb. xiii, 
17; Dr. Nathan Perkins of West Hartford offered the or- 
daining Prayer ; Mr. Rowland of Windsor gave the Charge; 
Dr. Abel Flint of the Second Church extended the Right 
Hand of Fellowship, and Rev. Samuel Goodrich of Berlin 
made the concluding prayer. 10 



10 The expense of the Ordination Dinner as charged on the Treasurer's Ac- 
count was ninety-four dollars. The ' C entrant of March 10, 1818, gives this 



372 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867 

Thus inducted into the pastorate, the tenth in the ministe- 
rial succession in this Church, Mr. Hawes soon followed the 
establishment of his ecclesiastical relations by the institution 
of social ones. He married on June 17, 18 18, Miss Louisa 
Fisher of Wrentham, Mass. 11 

The extended biography of Joel Hawes, published by Rev. 
Dr. Edward A. Lawrence in 1873, 12 which is in the hands of 
a considerable proportion of those who are interested in the 
chronicles of the First Church, will be held by the present 
writer to excuse him from entering upon any elaborate de- 
tails of the Pastor's personal history. It is to the main facts 
of the Church's corporate experience, and of the Pastor's 
life in relation to that experience, that these pages must be 
restricted. 

Dr. Strong had certainly been a very able and in most of 
his ministry a very devout and useful minister ; but many 
things in Church and Society affairs were left by him at 
strangely loose ends. 

Yet it is impossible to read the new Pastor's account of 
matters, written in the first year of his ministry, without dis- 
cerning a good deal of exaggeration and some inexplicable 
inaccuracy. He says : 



account of the proceedings : "A numerous and attentive audience appeared to 
be deeply interested in the solemnities of the occasion. The sacred music under 
the direction of Mr. Roberts was highly honorable to the Choir of Singers who 
have so often been distinguished on public occasions. The union and liberality 
of the people with the character and attainments of their Pastor furnish a well- 
grounded hope that he will become a worthy member of the illustrious succes- 
sion of Evangelical Ministers who have enlightened and adorned this Church 
from the first settlement of the State." 

11 Miss Fisher was the daughter of William C. and Lois Mason Fisher of 
Wrentham, Mass. Mr. Fisher was a farmer, a man of much intelligence, and 
of prominence in the public business of his town. 

12 "The life of Joel Hawes, D.D., Tenth Pastor of the First Church of Hart- 
ford, Conn., by Edward A. Lawrence, D.D. With an introduction by Theodore 
Woolsey, D.L., LL.D., Hartford: Published by Hamersley and Co. 1873." 
8vo, pp. 385. 



1818-1867.] JOEL HAWES. 373 

"Our Jerusalem is all in ruins. . . When I see how much 
is to be done here to set things in order, I am ready to sink ; 
no church-records ; no documents to tell me who are mem- 
bers and who not ; what children have been baptised, and 
what not ; our covenant and confession of faith contained in 
just ten Arminian lines ; four deacons of the five not mem- 
bers of the Church ; many irregular members, some timid 
ones, and, I fear, but few, who would favor a thorough re- 
formation. Oh, dear ! But under the guidance and blessing 
of Providence, I hope to see better days. My purpose is 
fixed and it must go" 13 

Rev. Mr. Robbins, writing in December 1816 14 of his friend 
Dr. Strong, says : " The church which he has left contains 
about 400 communicants, and is the largest in the State." 
Repeated revivals from the commencement of the century to 
the year previous to Dr. Strong's death had replenished the 
spiritual life of the organization, and it is not easy to see how 
such a condition of "ruin" could have existed in 1819 as the 
above pessimistic paragraph implies. The statement con- 
cerning the absence of records is unfortunately true. Dr. 
Strong seems utterly to have neglected the keeping of any 
account of baptisms, church admissions, removals or deaths. 
Only an alleged list of the members of the Church at the 
time of entrance on the new meeting-house in 1807, and 
some imperfect memoranda kept by one of the Prudential 
Committee for his own use, survive to us to indicate who had 
a place in the fellowship in Dr. Strong's day. But in the 
list of 1807, the names of Isaac Bull, Aaron Chapin, Aaron 
Colton, and Joseph Steward — deacons in 18 19, at the time of 
Mr. Hawes' paragraph — appear as members of the Church. 

But unqestionably there was enough to be done, and the 
new Pastor threw himself into his work with energy and suc- 



13 Lawrence's Life of Hawes, pp. 63-64. 

14 Courant, Dec. 31, 1816. 



374 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

cess. Records began to be kept in the Church, unkept or 
most imperfectly kept for forty-five years. A Prudential 
Committee, the first in the Church's history, was appointed 
in 1 82 1 to "aid the Pastor in promoting the peace and wel- 
fare of the Church and in the maintenance of gospel disci- 
pline." The committee thus designated consisted of the fol- 
lowing named individuals : Russell Bunce, William W. Ells- 
worth, Normand Smith, Caleb Goodwin, Henry Hudson, and 
James R. Woodbridge ; and the records of the Church indi- 
cate that they entered upon their function of " maintenance 
of gospel discipline" with vigor. 

The Pastor sympathetically cooperated also with the Sab- 
bath-school work, first undertaken in Hartford the year of his 
settlement. The " Sunday School Society " of the " inhabi- 
tants of the Town of Hartford," was organized on the 5th of 
May 18 18, Rev. Abel Flint of the Second Church being 
President, and Mr. Hawes one of the Directors. 15 Four 
schools were formed with special reference to the four then 
existing religious societies in the place — the First and Sec- 
ond Congregational, Christ Church, and the First Baptist — 
but all under the patronage of the Union Society. 16 This 



15 The list of officers was as follows : Rev. Abel Flint, President ; Rev. Jon- 
athan M. Wain wright, Vice-President ; Seth Terry, Secretary; Jeremiah Brown 
Treasurer; Rev. Elisha Cashmam, Rev. Joel Hawes, Michael Olcott, Russell 
Bunce, Michael Bull, Joseph B. Gilbert, Josiah Beckwith, Theodore Pease, 
James M. Goodwin, Directors. 

16 The " School No. 1 " was held at the " North Conference Room " in Temple 
street, and had for its original teachers : Messrs J. R. Woodbridge, George Put- 
nam, Lyman Coleman, Walter Colton, Lewis Edwards, Daniel P. Hopkins, and 
Misses Betsy Kingsbury, Nancy Perkins, Susan Knox, Harriet Whiting, and 
Mary Ann Brown. 

" School No. 2 " was held " at the Episcopal Church ; " " No. 3 " at the "Bap- 
tist Meeting House ; " " No. 4 at the South Chapel." George Spencer was 
Superintendent of School No. 1 ; James M. Goodwin of School No. 2 ; Joseph 
B. Gilbert of School No. 3 ; and Elijah Knox of School No. 4. The schools 
were maintained only in the months of Spring and Summer, from April to Oc- 
tober inclusive. A report was made on October 13, 1818, that the average at- 
tendance that season on the four schools had been "about 500 scholars." 



1818-1867.] JOEL HAWES. 375 

arrangement continued, however, only about two years, when 
each society took the management of Sunday-school work 
into its own hands. 

Another action to which the Church was persuaded about 
this time may, or may not perhaps, command equal sympathy. 
The new Pastor had just come from Andover, where the 
battle lines of the Unitarian controversy were set in sharply 
hostile array. And he stigmatized the Covenant of the 
Church here as " a covenant and confession of faith con- 
tained in just ten Arminian lines." That Covenant, which 
with slight verbal change had been in use in this Church 
certainly more than a century and a quarter, reads as follows : 

"You do now solemnly, in the presence of God and these 
witnesses, receive God in Christ to be your God: one God in 
three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. You 
believe the Scriptures to be the word of God, and promise 
by divine grace to make them the rule of your life and con- 
versation. You own yourself to be by nature a child of wrath 
and declare that your only hope of mercy is through the 
merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, whom you now pub- 
lickly profess to take for your Lord and Saviour, your Prophet, 
Priest, and King : and you now give up yourself to Him to 
be ruled, governed, and eternally saved. You promise by 
divine grace regularly to attend all the ordinances of the 
Gospel (as God may give you light and opportunity) and to 
submit to the rule and government of Christ in this Church." 

Just where the "Arminianism" comes into this old formula 
to which so many generations had given assent in the most 
solemn covenant of their lives, it is hard to tell. But the 
Church yielded to the Pastor's desires, and on the 29th of 
July 1822, adopted a long, many-articled confession of faith, 
which with slight and unimportant modifications continues 
in use to this day. 17 



17 See Appendix XIII for articles of Faith and Covenant thus adopted. 



376 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

But the grand distinguishing feature of the pastorate under 
consideration was the occurrence of revivals of religion such 
as on the whole surpassed in fruitfulness any which had 
marked the history of the Church before. One such revival 
in 1 819 brought into the Church a considerable accession, 
among whom were six young men from one mechanics' work- 
shop ; three of whom afterward entered the gospel ministry. 18 

Another revival in 1 820-1 821 pervaded the entire region, 
and brought into the churches connected with the Hartford 
County North Association more than a thousand new mem- 
bers, and added to the First Church one hundred and thirty- 
eight. In the labors of this period the Pastor was greatly 
assisted by the presence about two weeks and the powerful 
preaching of Rev. Lyman Beecher of Litchfield. 19 Surviving 
members of the Church still recall the scenes of intense 
solemnity and interest in the crowded meetings of the old 
Temple Street Conference-room, when the Litchfield pastor 
preached, and in the house to house visitation of the two 



18 Rev. James Anderson, born Sept. 13, 1798, at Hartford ; studied awhile at 
Amherst College ; graduated at Andover Seminary, 1828 ; ordained pastor at 
Manchester, Vt., 1829 ; resigned 1858; died Dec. 22, 1881. 

Anson Gleason, went as missionary to the Choctaw Indians in Mississippi, 
leaving Hartford on horseback January 19, 1823. Remained in that work till 
1831. Missionary to the Mohegan Indians in Connecticut from 1832 to 1848. 
District Secretary A. B. C. F. M. for Vermont and New Hampshire 1848 to 
1851. Missionary to the Seneca Indians in New York 1851 to 1861. City Mis- 
sionary in Rochester and Utica 1861 to 1864. City Missionary in Brooklyn, N. 
Y. 1864 to the present time (March 1884) in his 87th year. 

Algernon S. Kennedy graduated Y. C, 1825; studied Theology under private 
instruction ; licensed to preach but never ordained ; preached in various places 
but always in poor health, and died in 1841. 

19 Rev. A. Gleason in a letter dated Nov. 16, 1883, says: "The messenger 
reached Litchfield in the night and called Dr. Beecher up ; and he, partly 
dressed, walked the room with one boot on, saying, ' Wife ! Wife ! revival in 
Hartford, and I am sent for ! ' And the Doctor came to us like a lighted torch 
in full blaze. Large numbers were in the meetings for enquiry, and of all ages 
— judges, lawyers, merchants, asking the way to the kingdom." 



1818-1867-] REVIVALS AND LECTURES. 377 

ministers for private conference with the enquirers after the 
way of life. 

In 1826 another general awakening in this region brought 
many into the churches, and added to the First Church some 
fifty-four members. Many of them were young men. The 
Pastor was always deeply interested in this portion of his 
congregation. And he was moved in the autumn of the 
following year, 1827, to preach a series of Lectures to Young 
Men on successive Sunday evenings in his church. These 
Lectures were most enthusiastically listened to by crowded 
congregations. A repetition of them by request before the 
students of Yale College, was attended by almost equal inter- 
est. Their publication was called for. Few books of a simi- 
lar character have attained a like circulation. 

First published in April 1828, the edition was at once 
exhausted and another immediately called for. To the third 
edition, which soon followed the second, was added a Lecture 
on Reading, first delivered before the Mechanic's Association 
in Hartford and repeated to the First Church congregation. 

In 1856 two more lectures were added : the Causes of Suc- 
cess and of Failure in Life, and the Claims of the Bible on 
Young Men, and the copyright of the volume was made over 
by the author to the Congregational Board of Publication, 
with the stipulation that fifty copies should be annually sub- 
ject to the call of the successive pastors of the First Church 
for distribution in their congregations. 20 



20 This arrangement naturally came to naught. The pecuniary consideration 
in view of which the Congregational Board of Publication undertook the annual 
delivery of the books was totally inadequate ; the demand for the books ceased ; 
and in 1881 when the present Pastor unearthed the forgotten agreement, the 
Congregational Publication Society, which succeeded to the effects and 
liabilities of the old Board of Publication, avowed its inability to meet the con- 
tinuous obligation incurred by its predecessor, and turned over to the First 
Church the remaining copies of the Lectures on its hands. 
48 



378 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

It is said that nearly a hundred thousand copies of these 
Lectures to Young Men have found circulation in the various 
editions published in this country, and a still larger number 
in Great Britain. One Scotch publisher alone issued fifty 
thousand copies. 21 

The volume makes no pretence to any high degree of lite- 
rary excellence. It lacks the charm of a perennially attractive 
style or of a brilliant imagination. Like all the productions 
of its author, its aim is moral impression and practical use- 
fulness ; and this aim the writer of these lectures had the 
satisfaction of knowing was eminently attained. In the pre- 
face of the edition published by the Congregational Board 
in 1856, the author is able to say that " besides numerous 
testimonies to its general usefulness, he has heard of more 
than eighty young men who have traced the commencement 
of their Christian life to impressions received from reading 
this little book." At the time of its publication, the field 
was a comparatively untrodden one. Young men had not 
been made the objects of the continuous address and appeal 
which they have been since. But measured by its influence 
in its day, few more successful endeavors have been made in 
Christian authorship than this little volume. Perhaps its 
wide and immediate success was the occasion for confer- 
ring on its author the Doctorate Degree in Divinity with 
which, in 1831, Brown University honored him. 



21 The sale of the American edition was largely the source of income out of 
which Dr. Hawes seems to have built his house, now the First Church Parson- 
age. The ground, valued at $1,000, on which the house was built, was given 
him by the subscribers to a paper still extant : " Daniel Wadsworth, $400 ; 
Thomas S. Williams, $100; Oliver D. Cooke, $100; Wm. W. Ellsworth, $25; 
Henry L. Ellsworth, $50; Henry Hudson, $100; Joseph Trumbull, $50; Chas. 
Seymour, $50 ; George Goodwin, $50 ; Barzillai Hudson, $20 ; Andrew Kings- 
bury, $25 ; Robert Watkinson, $30." The erection of the superstructure at an 
apparent expense of $2,998.49, seems to have been provided for, certainly in 
considerable measure, by profits on the sale of the Lectures to Young Men. 



1818-1867J CHURCH EXPERIENCES. 370 

Worn somewhat by his continuous labors, Dr. Hawes in 
May 1 83 1, obtained leave of his Society 22 to take a Euro- 
pean trip ; which he did in company with Rev. Drs. Asahel 
Nettleton, Nathaniel Hewitt, Samuel Green and Prof. Hovey ; 
returning in October of the same year. His return was 
marked by the earnest resumption of his work, and by the 
experiment of a "protracted" or "four days'" meeting; tried 
it is said for the first time in Connecticut. Dr. Hawes 
doubted the wisdom of this particular form of endeavor, but 
yielded to the desire of the pastors of the Second and North 
Churches who favored it. Some fifty members were added 
to the Church as the result of this awakening. 

In 1834 an important religious movement occurred which 
brought into the Church many heads of families and men of 
general influence in the community, who had remained hith- 
erto unreached. The powerful preaching of Rev. N. W. 
Taylor of New Haven, who reinforced the endeavors of the 
Pastor at this time, contributed greatly to the success of this 
awakening, which resulted in the accession of between sixty 
and seventy to the church membership. The year 1838 
brought in eighty. 

In 1 84 1 was another great revival in this region. Rev. 
Mr. Kirk, then in the prime of his popular eloquence and 
evangelistic fervor, preached in many of the Hartford 
churches with persuasive power. One hundred and ten per- 



22 The Society voted the Pastor $500 toward the expense of this trip. His 
pulpit was supplied in his five months absence mainly by Rev. James T. Dickin- 
son. Mr. Dickinson was born at Lowville, N. Y., October 27, 1806; graduated 
Yale College, 1826 ; Yale Theological Seminary, 1830 ; Pastor of 2d Church, 
Norwich, Conn., two and a half years, 1832-1834 ; Missionary A. B. C. F. M. 
at Singapore, 1834-1840; Teacher at Singapore, 1840-1843; Stated preacher 
at Middlefield, Conn., 1845-6; resides at Middlefield. 



380 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

sons were added to this Church at this period. More than 
one hundred stood up at one time in the aisle of the church 
to confess their new faith. The revival of 1852 brought in 
sixty-six, and that of 1858 fifty. 

Ten periods of distinct religious awakening occurred during 
this ministry, and there were added to the Church in that 
space of time, by confession of faith, ten hundred and sev- 
enty-nine members. 

It is obvious to remark, in view of a fact like this, that the 
ministry of this eminent Pastor was cast in a period more 
characterized by general revival influences than any which 
had gone before for a hundred years, or than, from present 
signs, seems very likely soon to occur again. But it is 
equally obvious that these extraordinary results were largely 
attributable to the man himself who was in this pastorate at 
that period. His zeal, his wisdom, his perseverance, his pro- 
found convictions, his unmistakable sincerity and devotion, 
were powerful, and it is perfectly proper to say, indispensable 
elements in that wonderful series of awakenings. 

But if the period of this pastorate was one of large acces- 
sions to the Church, it was also one of large' colonizations 
from it. 

On the 23d of September 1824, ninety-seven members 
received dismission from this Church, and were, with others, 
organized as the North Church. 

On the 10th of January 1832, eighteen members were or- 
ganized with others as the Free, now the Fourth Church. 

On the 14th of October 1852, thirty-six members of this 
Church, and soon after eleven more, were dismissed to unite 
with others in forming the Pearl Street Church. 

For some reason the departure of those members destined 
to the Pearl Street Church finds unusual chronicle on the 



1818-1867.] CHURCH EXPERIENCES. 381 

generally arid pages of the Church record. The Thursday- 
evening lecture on the date of their dismissal was given up 
to a meeting for reminiscences and farewells. Deacon W. 
W. Turner presented the written request of himself and his 
thirty-five associates for dismission. Judge Thomas S. Wil- 
liams, as the senior lay officer in the Church, moved the grant- 
ing of the request. Deacons Smith and Turner followed 
with addresses of thanks and expressions of regret at sepa- 
ration. Deacon Turner said :. "Our Pastor is the only one 
who remains of those who were in the city when I came 
here. The population of the place was then about 5,000 ; 
now it is 20,000. There were then four places of worship — 
the South Church, a little north of the present edifice ; this 
Church, the only brick church-edifice in the city ; Christ 
Church, which has since been removed to Talcott Street for 
the Catholics, and the Baptist Church, just east of the City 
Hall." 

Dr. Hawes responded in an address of much emotion : 
" Each successive withdrawal of this kind makes a deeper 
impression upon me. Jacob in his old age was more affected 
by parting from Benjamin, than from Joseph and Simeon 
before. Four times I have witnessed a scene like this. In 
1824 ninety-seven members left us to the North or Third 
Church ; in 1832 eighteen to the Fourth Church, and in 
185 1 eight to the Presbyterian Church. But this enterprise 
has ever had my cordial good wishes, and if I have access to 
the throne of grace, I shall remember it there." 

On the 5th of March 1865, forty members, and shortly 
after eleven more, were dismissed to unite with others in 
forming the Asylum Hill Church. 

The old Church was a quarry, out of which everybody was 
free to draw the living stones of newer temples. It gave 



382 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

liberally. It gave men and it gave money. It was eminently 
a church-planting and missionary Church. 

That the Church had this character was very largely owing 
to the Pastor's earnest sympathy with that cause which Dr. 
Strong before him had so nearly at heart, the cause of mis- 
sions. The idea which had inspired the men with whom Dr. 
Strong labored to carry the gospel to the "new settlements," 
had widened in Dr. Hawes' day to the purpose to evangelize 
the pagans of other lands than our own. And to awaken 
sympathy with this purpose on the part of his people, the 
Pastor devoted some of his best energies. He was elected a 
corporate member of The American Board of Foreign Mis- 
sions in 1838, and continued a member till his death. Under 
his leadership the congregation became one of the most 
liberal givers to this object of any in New England. 

It was in fitting harmony with the spirit of self-surrender 
for this object which he so strenuously inculcated, that Dr. 
Hawes consented to the marriage of his only daughter Mary, 
to Rev. Henry J. Van Lennep, 23 with a view to a missionary 
life in a foreign land. She left her father's house in 1843, 
and sailed in October of that year for Smyrna. She had 
the happiness to be accompanied by her father, to whom his 
Church had given a leave of absence, and to whom in con- 
junction with Rev. Dr. Rufus Anderson the "Board" had 
entrusted a visitation commission to the Turkey missions. 24 



23 Rev. Henry John Van Lennep, D.D., born at Smyrna, Asia Minor, March 
18, 1815; graduated at Amherst College, 1837 ; ordained, Aug. 27, 1839; mar- 
ried Mary E. Hawes, Sept. 4, 1843, anc * Emily Ann Bird, April 18, 1850 ; mission- 
ary at Smyrna, 1839-1869; returned to America ; resides at Great Barrington, 
Mass. 

24 During the absence of Dr. Hawes the pulpit was mainly supplied by Rev. 
Charles Rich (Mr. Rich graduated at Yale College, 1838 ; acting pastor at Mer- 
iden, 1840-41; died, 1862.) Some people expressed the fear that Mr. Rich 
would steal the hearts of the people. Judge Williams wrote to Dr. Hawes : 



1818-1867.] . CHURCH EXPERIENCES. 383 

Her term of service was destined to be short. • She died in 
September of the following year, 1844, and was buried in 
foreign soil. 25 

Her father returned from the Levantine tour in the early 
summer of 1844, the Church receiving from the mission- 
aries at Constantinople a letter of testimonial to the encour- 
agement and cheer imparted by this visit of its Pastor. A 
public reception at the City Hall was arranged on the Pas- 
tor's return, where he was cordially welcomed by his congre- 
gation and by others. 

Of course a pastorate like this attracted attention, and 
induced other churches to desire the services of such a man 
for themselves. In 1828 Dr. Hawes was invited to the min- 
istry of the Bowery Presbyterian Church in New York; a 
call which was repeated on his first declination of it, but a 
second time refused. In 183 1 he was called to the pastorate 
of the Park Street Church in Boston ; and having declined 
to accept it, was once more, about a year afterward, solicited 
to accept the same charge, but with a like negative of the 



" There is no serious danger from this source. I agree with Mr. M , that 

' when Dr. Hawes returns home and blows his trumpet, his troops will all flock 
to his standard.' " 

25 A memoir of Mrs. Mary E. Van Lennep was written by her mother and 
published, passing through many editions. It is a graceful tribute to a beauti- 
ful life. Mary was born April 16, 1 82 1. She became a member of this Church 
in June 1833, at the age of 12 years. She was ever an active and working 
Christian, intent on the salvation of her companions and acquaintances, the 
members of her Sunday-school class, and all to whom her influence could 
reach. She was married at 22 years of age, and sailed almost immediately for 
the mission to which her husband was destined. Her life on the mission field 
was one of earnest consecration and effort to qualify herself for a large useful- 
ness. She was cut off from all her hopes of such continued service, dying of 
typhus, Sept. 27, I844. A discourse, entitled A Father's Memorial of an Only 
Daughter, was preached by her father in Hartford, Dec. 9, 1844, which was 
published ; a sermon eminently characteristic of the self-control and submis- 
siveness of the afflicted parent, as well as happily descriptive of the attractive 
traits of his sainted child. 



384 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

proposal. During the few following years Dr. Hawes re- 
ceived and declined invitations to become pastor of the First 
Presbyterian Church in Buffalo, the First Presbyterian 
Church in Utica, the First Reformed Church in Philadel- 
phia, and the Richmond Street Church in Providence. But 
he preferred to abide where he was first planted. Nor does 
there seem at any time to have been much apprehension on 
the part of his congregation that he would accept any of the 
overtures made to him. Either from a confidence in the 
Pastor's affection for his people, or from a not perhaps un- 
characteristic estimate on their part of the desirableness of 
a relationship to Hartford and its First Ecclesiastical estab- 
lishment, there appears no indication of any great fear of his 
removal. 26 

The Pastor of the First Church was always a conspicuous 
figure at the State religious gatherings, and his Church had 
reason for confidence that, represented by him, its voice 
would have full weight in whatsoever questions were in de- 
bate. Though not naturally a polemic or a controversialist, 
Dr. Hawes was a strong debater, and was a sympathetic 
defender of the ecclesiastical system long legally established 
and still longer generally accepted in Connecticut. 27 It was 



20 A letter (perhaps happily anonymous) preserved in Dr. Lawrence's biogra- 
phy of Dr. Hawes, written to the Pastor during the pendency of the overture 
to the Bowery Street Church, presents this view of the impossibility of a seri- 
ous intent to go anywhere from Hartford, in a very soberly intended, but a 
decidedly amusing manner. Possibly, however, a trace of solicitude on this 
point (or perhaps it may be rather of gratitude for his conclusion) appears in 
the addition, in 1836, of $300 to the salary on which the Pastor was settled ; an 
addition which was voted regularly thereafter till 1854, when the salary was 
fixed at $2,000, till the settling of an " Associate Pastor " in 1862, when the 
original $1,200, on which he was settled, was reverted to and continued until his 
death. 

27 Dr. Hawes was fond' of quoting the statement of Thomas Hooker ( Survey > 
iv, 1.) "The Consociation of Churches is not onely lawful but very useful 1 
also ; " and especially that other saying, uttered " about a week before his 



1818-1867.] DR. HAWES' WRITINGS. 385 

not till three years after his death that the local Consociation 
to which his Church belonged suspended 28 its regular assem- 
blies ; doubtless in favor of the newly-instituted Conferences, 
which had come extensively through the State, to take the 
place of the older organizations. 

Dr. Hawes was not characteristically a book-writer. His 
mind was not of a speculative or imaginative order, prompt- 
ing to authorship as a channel for the outflow of what could 
not be repressed. He wrote some books, but they were 
mainly practical in aim, and such as were begotten of the 
pastoral experience. Beside the Lectures to Young Men, 
spoken of already, he published in 1830 A Tribute to the 
Memory of the Pilgrims ; in 1839 a Memoir of Normand 
Smith; in 1843 Character Everything to the Young; in 
1845 The Religion of the East ; in 1845 Looking-G lass for 
the Ladies, or the Formation and Excellence of Female Char- 
acter ; in 1850 Washington and yay ; beside a great many 
occasional addresses and sermons on public occasions. 
Among the latter ought particularly to be mentioned A Cen- 
tennial Discourse on the First Church in Hartford, delivered 
June 26, 1836; and an Address delivered at the Request of 



death," (See Trumbull i, 479.) "We must agree upon constant meetings of 
ministers, and settle the consociation of churches or else we are undone." He 
was indeed accustomed to assert, as he did in his address at the one hundred 
and fiftieth anniversary of the General Association, in 1859, that Mr. Hooker 
" was the father of the system of Consociation." (See Cont. Conn. Eccl. Hist., 
p. 87.) 

28 Oct. 18, 187 1, the Hartford North Consociation "voted to dispense with 
Annual meetings," and entrusted its records " to the care of the Registrar of 
Hartford Conference." The Hartford Conference was formed Feb. 21, 1871. 
The First Church on the 27th of November previous, responded by appointing 
delegates to an overture of the Second Church, dated Nov. 15th, calling a 
meeting of the Hartford and neighboring churches at the chapel of the Second 
Church, Nov. 30, 1870, for " purposes of religious quickening, and possibly, if 
deemed advisable, for the formation of a permanent local Conference." 
49 



386 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

the Citizens of Hartford, Nov. 9, 1835, at ^ le Close of the 
Second Century from the Settlement of the City. 

Neither of these discourses shows much trace of historical 
investigation ; a process not very congenial to the Pastor's 
taste or practice ; but both are interesting contributions to 
the local literature of the Church and town. 

Through all that he wrote the homiletic habit of his mind 
manifested itself. He was above all else a minister of the 
Gospel. Nothing much attracted his attention or stirred his 
pen which had not a quite immediate connection with prac- 
tical religion. 

Dr. Hawes was not, like his predecessor Dr. Strong, a 
witty man, but he had a sometimes vigorous, sometimes 
quaint, or sometimes odd and simple way of saying things, 
which cause many of his utterances to be familiarly remem- 
bered. A few stories of him may here be recorded: 

Dr. Hawes always recollected the priority of the First 
Church over all other ecclesiastical institutions in town ; 
and his own long connection with that Church gave him a 
kind of conscious primacy in the place which found pleasant 
expression in this anecdote told of him. Calling on the 
scholarly rector of an Episcopal Church in the city with 
whom he was on terms of familiarity, and not finding him at 
home, he replied to the question of the servant as to whom 
she should say had called, " Say Bishop Hawes." 

A young friend, of sanguine expectations, was going West 
to make a home. Dr. Hawes bade him good-bye with best 
wishes for the realization of his hopes, but suggested the 
propriety of his remembering that " Lot chose one of the 
cities of the plain to dwell in because it was well watered, 
but he was burned out nevertheless." 

Dr. Hawes looked with much disfavor on the discontinu- 



1818-1867.] PERSONAL TRAITS. 387 

ance of the afternoon preaching service in his congregation. 
Reading on one occasion the eighty-fourth Psalm, and com- 
ing to the verse For a day in thy courts is better than a thou- 
sand^ he paused ; and lifting off his spectacles and looking 
straight down with extended fore-finger at a friend in the 
congregation who advocated the forenoon preaching only, 
said : "Observe, it is a day in thy courts the Psalmist wanted, 
not merely half a day." 

The absolute sincerity and incapability of indirection or 
finesse of Dr. Hawes, come plainly and even amusingly out 
in these two incidents which are told of him. The first time 
his ageing eyesight demanded the employment of spectacles 
in the pulpit, he took them quite obviously and even demon- 
stratively out of his pocket, and remarking " You see, my 
dear people, what I have come to" deliberately adjusted them 
and began his discourse. 

Being called to New York to assist Dr. Spring in a time 
of great religious interest, and preaching to a crowded and 
intensely solemn assembly, Dr. Hawes' sermon led on into a 
passage bewailing the declension of religion and the absence 
of indications of spiritual life. He continued in this strain 
several sentences, when he paused, and putting his finger on 
the point where he left off, looked over the pulpit in an 
explanatory way, saying " You perceive, my friends, that this 
sermon was originally written for another occasion!' and 
went on with the discourse. 

Dr. Hawes had a strong aversion to anything that looked 
like artificiality and sensationalism in the pulpit. One Sun- 
day a New York minister of some celebrity preached for 
him. Monday morning a brother minister met him and 
alluded to his having had a distinguished minister in his pul- 
pit the day before. The quick and only response of the 



388 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

Doctor was : "There are a great many ways of going to hell, 
and flashy preaching is one of them." 

The strong and comforting words Dr. Hawes used to 
speak in the sick-room made his visits welcome and often 
called for. On one occasion he could not go to see a good 
old lady who seemed near her end ; but knowing what man- 
ner of woman she was, he sent the message : " Tell her she 
has a free pass to heaven that don't need Joel Hawes' en- 
dorsement." 

The Pastor liked to preach, but he preferred to preach to 
a good congregation. Rev. Dr. O. E. Daggett used to tell 
with pleasure the fact that during his settlement at the 
Second Church — from 1837 to 1843 — a rainy Sunday morn- 
ing was very likely to bring him, about breakfast time, a 
proposal from Dr. Hawes for an exchange that day. This 
rainy-day exchange occurred so many times, that at last a 
good old lady of the Second Church, innocently but ear- 
nestly remarked to her pastor upon the " very singular Prov- 
idence which always orders it to rain whenever Dr. Hawes 
preaches at the South Church." 

Dr. Hawes was genuinely desirous that the young men of 
his Church should be brought forward into the ranks of the 
active workers in it, but his nervousness at their attempts 
was obvious to them, and could but exert a somewhat repres- 
sive influence. Dr. H. Clay Trumbull tells this incident of 
a monthly-concert service, which it had been arranged should 
be conducted by the young men. Dr. Hawes after opening 
the meeting said, " I understand that the young men have 
arranged to report from different missionary fields to-night. 
They have not informed me of their plans. But they will 
go on. Who comes first ? " Mr. George P. Bissell, then 
quite a young man, stepped forward and reported as to China. 



1818-1867.] PERSONAL TRAITS. 389 

" Who comes next ? " asked the Doctor, with a touch of un- 
easiness in his tone. W. Wallace Jones, still younger, re- 
ported from the field of Home Missions. "Who's next?" 
called out the Doctor, in little less than a groan. H. Clay 
Trumbull rose to report from the Sandwich Islands. As the 
Doctor saw his beardless face the juvenile element was al- 
together too much for him. " Stop, Trumbull, stop ! " he 
called out, and turning imploringly to Chief-Justice Wil- 
liams said earnestly, "Judge Williams, as soon as Mr. Trum- 
bull is through, won't you speak or lead in prayer. A few 
words of age and experience would do us good to-night." 
Then turning to Mr. Trumbull he said, graciously, " Now go 
on, Trumbull." 

The Doctor, nevertheless, was troubled sometimes at the 
comparatively small numbers who took part in the rather 
formidably conducted services in which Judges Ellsworth 
and Williams, and other mature and dignified members of 
the Church chiefly participated ; and occasionally he deter- 
mined that a new leaf stiould be turned. Rising at an even- 
ing service, with a resolute look in his face, he said : " I 
hear that in Brother Beadle's church, close by us, there are 
more than eighty persons, who at one time or another take 
part in the prayer-meeting services. I have been looking the 
matter over and I can count only eleven to be depended on 
in that way in this Church of over five hundred. Brethren, 
this must be changed-" Then pointing at a prominent mem- 
ber of the Church, well known in public affairs but seldom 
or never participating in devotional services, he said : 

" Brother will you lead us in prayer, and we wont take 

any excuse ! " 29 



29 The utility of a mid-week conference when compared with a mid-week lec- 
ture, was a point about which Dr. Hawes always had very positive convictions. 



3QO THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

This unique method of the Pastor's introducing a public 
speaker rests on the same authority as the last two anecdotes 
before given, that of Dr. H. Clay Trumbull. The speaker 
was a missionary and had been duly introduced by the Pas- 
tor to the Thursday-evening assembly. Suddenly the Pastor, 
who had taken his seat back of the stranger, sprang up, say- 
ing, "Stop!" Then addressing the congregation, he con- 
tinued " I knew this man when he was a boy ; a most 
unpromising youth ! I never thought he would make any- 
thing. But he persevered. He kept at work. And now 
let me say he can write as good a letter as any senior in Yale 
College. Go on, brother ! " 

Dr. Hawes had a sturdy and a well-grounded persuasion 
that he was an effective preacher. In his later days, when 
he began to be surrounded by younger men, " the rather new 
and modern sound of their gospel " — one of them says — did 
not always please him. And he had a conversation on the 
subject with an aged minister, and after criticizing the young 
ministers about him in some respects, and admitting a few 
things in [their] favor, he wound up and said : "But when 
it comes to preaching, Brother B., I can beat the whole of 
them." 30 

Underneath his somewhat rough and sometimes rather 
austere deportment, the Pastor carried a very warm and sen- 
sitive heart. He saw much personal affliction and bereave- 
ment, and he knew how to sympathize with suffering. His 
love for the young was earnest and tender. The loss of so 



His successor, Rev. Mr. Gould (sharing the general views of later New Eng- 
land pastors on the matter) instituted a conference meeting, in place of the lec- 
ture. Encountering Mr. Gould at the post-office, one morning, after a not 
very successful Thursday evening conference, Dr. Hawes abruptly addressed 
him : " Brother Gould, you'll never make those gabble-meetings go in the 
Centre Church, never ! " 
80 Rev. Dr. Burton in the First Church Commemorative Exercises, p. 120. 



1818-1867.] SOCIETY AFFAIRS. 39! 

many of his own children in early life seemed to bind all 
other children to him. His approaches to them were rather 
elephantine and stately sometimes, but young children saw 
friendliness in him always and were seldom afraid of him. 
He had a broad, hearty laugh ; was fond of good stories ; 
was quick at rejoinder, and a wholesome, healthy talker. In 
the family visits among his people his presence was welcome 
as sunlight and brought with it a benediction. 

Meantime alongside the really grand record of this pastor- 
ate on its spiritual side, ran the semi-secular chronicle of 
Society matters, with its usual line of honorable, amusing, 
or drudging incidents. 

The purchase system respecting the pews and slips in the 
meeting-house, was attended by some disadvantages. Owners 
of good sittings thus legally secured, sometimes were unwill- 
ing and sometimes became unable to pay a proper propor- 
tion of the Society expenses. In 1823 the Society found 
itself twenty-one hundred dollars in debt on current ex- 
penses ; and proposed for the meeting of future obligations 
a scheme of a lease of the pews to the Society on the part 
of the owners, and of annual rental to the congregation ; 
three-fourths of the amount of the rental to be paid to the 
owners, and one-fourth "with a moderate tax" additional, 
to be applied to the expenditures of the Society. The 
scheme was carried into partial execution but afforded no 
permanent relief. 

In 1826 the debt had increased, and the Society voted to 
attempt the purchase of the pews "at a rate not exceeding 
sixty-five per cent, on their original cost " for those held in 
fee, and " thirty-two and a half per cent, for those sold for 
thirty years," and conditional "on the assent to such pur- 
chase of three-fourths of the total valuation." 



3Q2 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

One consideration urged at this meeting was that " both 
the North and South Societies have elegant and convenient 
churches where seats may be purchased annually at Auction 
upon perfectly equal competition." Three-fourths of the 
interest could not be secured. 31 So in 1827 the Society 
made the attempt again, fixing the measure of assent requi- 
site, at two-thirds of the interest involved. This plan so far 
succeeded that in 1828 the Society authorized a committee 
to borrow eighteen thousand dollars for the purchase of such 
pews as could be had on the terms proposed, which pews 
were to be thereafter annually rented for the benefit of the 
Society. But not all the pews could be so purchased. Some 
of their owners and occupants, furthermore, were not legal 
members of the Society. And thus many pews regularly 
filled by worshipers in the congregation, escaped all contri- 
bution to ministerial support or to parish expenditures. To 
meet this difficulty the Society voted, in March 1838, to 
apply to the Legislature for power to tax the pews and slips 
in the meeting-house generally, for the expenses of the 
Society. 

But the matter dragged along, a source of annoyance and 
of recrimination, till 1847, at which time the Society was 
able to put an end to the long difficulty by the passage of 
the following vote : 

"Voted : that to aid in the support of Public worship in 
this Society for the year ensuing there be raised by Assess- 
ment upon the Tews and Slips in the Meeting House the 
sum of Twenty-five Hundred dollars ; and the Society's 
Committee are authorized and directed to assess the same 
upon the respective pews and slips in proportion to their 



31 The paper is still extant bearing the signatures of those who did agree to 
this proposal ; they are the names of the leading members of the congregation 
of the period, headed almost of course by Daniel Wadsworth. 



1818-1867.] SOCIETY AFFAIRS. 393 

value as they may estimate the same, and the sum so 
assessed shall be payable to the Treasurer on the 6 th 
day of March next : and if in any case it becomes neces- 
sary to enforce the payment, the Committee are author- 
ized and directed to pursue the steps pointed out by the Law 
entitled 'An Act in Addition to an Act relating to Reli- 
gious Societies and Congregations' approved June 23d, 1847." 
An organ, the first used in the Church edifice, was pro- 
cured by voluntary subscription in 1822. It was a small 
instrument, but its advent was the signal for considerably 
increased interest in musical affairs. 32 Nine years, how- 
ever, outdated the organ in the view of the " singers," who 
petitioned the Society in 1831 for a new one. This in 1833 
was voted by a " tax on the polls and ratable estate of the 
inhabitants of the Society;" and in 1835 the Society was 
able to celebrate the putting into its service an organ whose 
superiority to any then in the region was universally recog- 
nized, and which had few equals in the country. 33 Its inau- 
guration was attended by an exhibition of its powers by Mr. 
George J. Webb, and by a lecture on music by Mr. Lowell 
Mason ; and it was followed by a formal vote of thanks " to 
Mr. Thomas Appleton of Boston for the excellent and splen- 
did instrument built by him for this Society." 34 



32 Mr. Deodatus Dutton was organist ; succeeded in this service by Mr. The- 
odore Lyman. Mr. Lynde Olmsted was choir leader. The Jubal Society ob- 
tained leave to " exhibit their performances " four times a year in the meeting- 
house, with the privilege of taking a contribution. 

33 Samuel A. Cooper was first organist on the new instrument, and Benjamin 
Wade was choir leader. Mr. Cooper was succeeded, after a service of several 
years, by Henry W. Greatorex of London, for whose services the organ silently 
waited many weeks, although Mr. Albert Bull, who then conducted the vocal 
services of the choir, was regarded as quite able to officiate at the organ had 
not his extreme modesty forbidden. He had previously served as organist at 
the North Church. The new organ is said to have cost $4,000, inclusive of the 
allowance for the old one. 

34 But Mr. Ezekiel Williams found the " sub-bass " too much for his nerves, 
and petitioned the Society in 1837 " that the sub-bass of the Organ may be 

5o 



3Q4 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

New interest in music meant almost necessarily agitation 
about a new hymn-book. Dwight's edition of Watts' had 
been in use from near the commencement of the century, 
and in 1836 the Church voted to substitute for it the Christian 
Psalmist™ The Society however did not concur, and no 
change was made. Two years more saw another attempt. 
The Pastor, in September 1838, recommended the adoption 
of Worcester's revision of Watts' psalms and hymns, known 
as Watts and Select, and a committee of the Church was 
appointed to take the matter into consideration, but it ap- 
parently went no further. 

In 1842 the subject was again brought forward and a com- 
mittee of the Church, appointed May 15th, reported Decem- 
ber 28th, recommending the adoption of Sacred Lyrics, a 
volume compiled by Rev. Dr. Beaman. This however went 
no further. In 1845 the change came. Both Church and 
Society voted in June of that year, to introduce " the edi- 
tion of Psalms and Hymns recently prepared and set forth 
by the General Association of Connecticut." And so the 
ten years' agitated hymn-book question found temporary 
repose. 

In March 1831, a committee 37 was appointed to sell the 
old conference-room on Temple Street, and to purchase "the 



dispensed with in the morning service." The petition was referred to a com* 
mittee, with what ultimate result does not appear. 

35 This action of the Church was the result of a meeting held at the North 
Church June 17, 1836, at which representatives of several churches were pres- 
ent; Dr. Hawes acted as chairman, and "the necessity of a change in our 
church psalmody was voted unanimously," and the Christian Psalmist, with 
equal unanimity recommended. 

36 « p sa i ms and Hymns for Christian Use and Worship, prepared and set 
forth by the General Association of Connecticut, 1845." Edited by Jeremiah 
Day, Bennet Tyler, E. T. Fitch, J. Hawes, and Leonard Bacon. 

37 Joseph Trumbull, Nathan Johnson, Richard Bigelow, and, subsequently, 
Eliphalet Averill, in place of Joseph Trumbull, were appointed the committee. 



1818-1867.] SOCIETY AFFAIRS. 395 

building and land owned by Messrs. Wadsworth and Terry, 
next north of the Meeting House; " and for so " altering and 
repairing the building as to accommodate the Sunday School 
and other meetings of the Society." The same committee 
was authorized furthermore to " appropriate for the purpose 
the Society Fund" for the support of the ministry raised in 
1802, 38 and "also to raise by subscription and otherwise a 
sufficient sum to complete the payment." So that the latter 
part of 1832 saw the present conference-room finished and 
in use. 39 

In 1835 the Society declared that it was "expedient to 
lower the Galleries and Pulpit in the Meeting house," and to 
" alter the Pews and Slips, in the Galleries," the whole not to 
exceed in expense nineteen hundred dollars. In accordance 
with this vote the galleries came down nearly five feet, and 
the pulpit, which had been lowered once before, in 18 16, an 
uncertain distance also. 40 

The year 1839 saw carpets put into the aisles for the first 
time. 41 1845 took out the stoves hitherto in use and put in 
furnaces. 1846 saw the necessity for a new bell; and one 
thousand dollars were appropriated " exclusive of the old bell 
originally belonging to the Society," for a new one to be cast 



38 A report was made to the Society by the committee affirming the propriety 
of so appropriating the fund of 1802. See Ante, p. 351. The exact value of 
the fund at this time cannot be determined. There are indications that it had 
not grown in accordance with the plan of the original donors, who certainly 
gave it for another purpose, and perhaps had decreased. 

39 The Temple Street property and subscriptions did not, however, suffice to 
pay the expenses, and the Society borrowed $1,600 additional of the Connecti- 
cut Missionary Society. 

i0 This lowering of the galleries doubtless necessitated the removal of the can- 
opies over the Governor's pews ; unless indeed they had been previously taken 
away in accordance with a vote passed Jan. 7, 1831, "That the Committee of the 
Society be authorized, if they deem it expedient, to remove the two Canopies in 
or near the center of the Meeting House." 

41 At a cost of $238. 



396 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

by N. P. Ames. This bell soon failed, and another was voted 
in January 1850, "not less than 3000 nor more than 4000 
pounds" in weight. This sweet-toned bell which calls 
together the congregation yet, is fondly and perhaps correctly 
supposed to contain in it the recast material of its prede- 
cessors, inclusive of the old Newtown bell of 1632. 

1849 put in a new clock into the tower, for which $700 
had been previously voted. The year 1852 saw extensive 
alterations in the church-edifice. A recess was made for the 
new pulpit, which now replaced the twice-lowered one of dark- 
colored wood 42 built at the first erection of the house; the 
square pews were removed and slips substituted throughout 
the building ; the windows in the west end were closed up, 
and those in the sides of the house enlarged ; new furnaces 
introduced and gas-fixtures procured ; a new arch thrown over 
the center of the audience-room between the supporting col- 
umns, and the building brought to substantially its present 
interior aspect. 43 



42 Fond tradition calls it Mahogany ; but Dr. Dwight in describing the church 
(See Travels,Yo\. i, p. 235) says : "The pulpitis of varnished wood resembling 
light coloured mahogany." And the construction accounts of the church edifice, 
including items for the pulpit, which record the purchase of Cherry planks and 
boards but do not speak of Mahogany, confirm the view that in all probability 
the material was Cherry. 

43 This was done under direction of a Committee consisting of Messrs. Calvin 
Day, S. P. Kendal], S. S. Ward and Erastus Smith. Ten thousand four hund- 
red and fifty-five dollars were raised by subscription for the purpose, the names 
and sums subscribed being entered on the Society Records. See Appendix 
XIV. Mr. Day tells these two anecdotes concerning these repairs. Having 
himself headed the subscription for them with a thousand dollars, he took the 
book next to Judge Williams. The Judge put his name down for five hundred 
dollars, and then handing the book back to Mr. Day said: "If you will just let 
the old house remain as it is, I'll make it a thousand." 

The large columns in the meeting-house were regarded by many as a great 
disadvantage, obstructing as they did, and still do, many sittings in various 
parts of the audience-room. Mr. Day consulted an eminent architect as to the 
practicability of their removal. "Can you take them out ?" he inquired. "O 
yes, certainly," was the answer. " What should you do then ? " was the next 



1818-1867.] SETTLEMENT OF COLLEAGUE. 397 

But the Pastor who had seen all these and some subse- 
quent minor changes, gradually aged. Revivals had attended 
his later as well as his earlier years. One in 1858, as has 
been already said, added many members to the Church. But 
the work was getting heavy for hands which had carried it 
so long. In January 1862 Dr. Hawes wrote a long letter 
to the Church and Society, in which he avowed his conviction 
" that duty to myself and to you requires a change in the 
relation I have so long sustained . . . The burden I have borne 
so long presses too heavily . . . Whatever action you may take 
in the premises after due deliberation, you may count on my 
cheerful concurrence in it." The Society at its meeting 
January 27th, received the Pastor's communication, and after 
recording its intention to make a " suitable annual provision 
for Dr. Hawes," voted : 

" That it is the desire of this Society with the concurrence 
of Dr. Hawes to proceed to call and settle a new minister ; 
Dr. Hawes still retaining his pastoral relation to us but with- 
out its responsibility ; and we desire to take measures to 
bring about that event ; and that, further, it is not our pleas- 
ure to settle a mere colleague." 

Dr. Hawes replied to the Society in a very long letter 
dated February 3, 1862. In this letter he expresses non- 
concurrence with the Society on the colleague question ; 
argues at great length the advantageous character of such 
ministerial relationships ; appeals to the example of the asso- 
ciation of Hooker and Stone as illustrating the happy possi- 
bilities of such a connection ; recalls the fact that the Society 
was in search of a colleague for Dr. Strong when death inter- 
posed to prevent the consummation of the arrangement; 
answers the objection that colleague pastorates are often 



question. " Then ; O, then I should put them back again," was the architect's 
reply. The columns were not disturbed. 



398 the FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

unhappy, by saying that marriage relationships are often so, 
yet that marriage is not thereby proved essentially unwise; 
and avows that the position of pastor emeritus proposed by 
the Society is " a change greater than [he] could at present 
desire." 

The well-disciplined Society yielded ; and voted, Feb. 7th, 

" To call and settle an Associate pastor ; it being under- 
stood that Dr. Hawes shall retain his pastoral relation to us, 
but shall be relieved of its duties and responsibilities, which 
duties and responsibilities are to rest upon the Junior Pastor ; 
while it is desired and expected by us that Dr. Hawes will 
render such assistance to the junior pastor as his health and 
strength will permit and circumstances require." 

In pursuance of this amicable arrangement Mr. Phineas 
Wolcott Calkins was invited by Church vote July 31st, 1862, 
and by Society vote Aug. 4th, to settle with this Church and 
Society "in the gospel ministry." 44 

Mr. Calkins was ordained Associate Pastor of the Church 
and Society, October 21, 1862. In the exercises of the oc- 
casion the Invocation and Reading of Scriptures were by 
Rev. Dr. Vermilye ; Introductory Prayer, Rev. President 
Woolsey ; Sermon by Rev. Professor Phelps of Andover, 
Mass. ; Ordaining Prayer by Rev. J. F. Calkins of Willsboro', 
Penn. ; Charge to the Pastor by the Rev. Dr. Hawes ; Right 
Hand of Fellowship by Rev. L. L. Paine of Farmington ; 
Address to the People by Rev. Professor D wight ; Conclud- 
ing Prayer by Rev. Eben 1 . Cutler of Worcester, Mass. ; Ben- 
ediction by the Associate Pastor, Mr. Calkins. 

The young minister thus joined with Dr. Hawes was born 
at Painted Post (now Corning) New York, June 10, 1831. 



44 The Society voted, at the same date, to pay Dr. Hawes $2,000 per annum, 
till a new minister was installed, and thereafter $1,200. The salary voted to 
Mr. Calkins was $2,000. 



1818-1867.] DR. HA WES' OLD AGE. 399 

He graduated at Yale College in 1856; was engaged in 
teaching from 1856 to 1859 '■> admitted to the middle class at 
Union Theological Seminary in 1859; continued theological 
study at Halle in Germany and in France in 1860-1862. He 
was never "licensed" as a preacher. 

Mr. Calkins entered upon his ministry with zeal and gen- 
eral acceptance. Gifted with a winning and effective utter- 
ance his congregations were large and his preaching success- 
ful in winning souls. He labored with special earnestness 
and utility in connection with the Mission services held in 
Washington Hall on State Street, which subsequently be- 
came merged in the Warburton Mission in Temple Street. 

But for some reason or other the relationship of the two Pas- 
tors was not attended by all the harmony which, in his depict- 
ing of the ideal colleagueship, Dr. Hawes had anticipated. 
On April 29, 1864, Mr. Calkins resigned his associate pastor- 
ate. On the 5th of May following, Dr. Hawes communicated 
his own resignation, desiring to retain only the nominal 
connection of Pastor Emeritus. The Church and Society 
voted " unanimously " to accept the resignation of Dr. 
Hawes, and not to accept that of Mr. Calkins. On the 17th 
of May, an Ecclesiastical Council convened to take the ques- 
tion of Mr. Calkins' resignation into consideration, but dur- 
ing its deliberation the case was withdrawn. Re-assembled 
however by call on the 6th of July, Mr. Calkins was dis- 
missed ; both Church and Society however putting on 
record — together with a warm testimony of confidence and 
affection — a declaration of inability to find adequate cause for 
sundering the relationship. 45 



45 Mr. Calkins, after leaving Hartford, became pastor of Calvary Presbyte- 
rian Church,- Philadelphia, Nov. 20, 1864 until Oct 29, 1866; then pastor of the 
First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo, Nov. 18, 1866 until February 1, 1880; then 



400 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

Left in his position as Emeritus Pastor of the Church, Dr. 
Hawes continued in that relationship nearly three years. 
There can be no doubt of the fact, and no utility in disguis- 
ing it, that the events connected with the severance of his 
active relations to his people were exceedingly trying to him. 
He had not the power which some men possess of adjusting 
himself to unwelcome circumstances. He felt himself in some 
degree injured and deserted. But time softened the severity 
of the emotion. His relations to his successor, installed about 
six months later, were cordial and grew to be paternal. He 
preached occasionally in the pulpit which was once his own ; 
he ministered at the bed-side of the sick, and buried some- 
times the dead. 

In the vacant pulpits of the neighborhood, also, his voice 
was often heard proclaiming the old message of the gospel. 
It was in an absence from home on one of these occasions 
that he sickened and died. He preached at Gilead June 2, 
1867; in the morning from the fourth verse of the thirty-ninth 
Psalm; Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of 
my days what it is, that I may knozv how frail I am ;" and in 
the afternoon from Matthew, twenty-fifth chapter, thirty-sec- 
ond verse : "And before him shall be gathered all nations; 
and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd 
divideth his sheep from the goats." Taken ill the same 
evening, he died on Wednesday morning, June 5, 1867, in the 
seventy-eighth year of his age. His wife, between whom 
and himself there had always existed an unusual degree of 
the affection and dependence belonging to the relationship, 



pastor of Eliot Church, Newton, Mass., Feb. 5, 1880, where he still is. He re- 
ceived the degree of Doctor in Divinity from Hamilton College in 1877. Dr. 
Calkins has written for the press various articles in McClintock and Strong's 
Cyclopedia, the Presbyterian Quarterly and public journals. 



1818-1876.] DR. HAWES' OLD AGE. 4OI 

speedily followed him, dying three days afterward. 40 All his 
children, six in number, had died before him, most of them 
in childhood. His son Erskine 47 had attained manhood ; had 
entered the ministry ; and was the pastor of the church in 
Plymouth, when suddenly taken away by an accident in the 
father's seventy-first year. 

The funeral services of the old Pastor were attended in 
the church of his long ministry on Saturday afternoon, June 
8th ; Rev. President Woolsey of Yale College, preaching the 
sermon. Two other sermons suggested by his life and death 
were preached by Hartford pastors ; one by Rev. E. P. Par- 
ker of the Second Church, and the other by Rev. George H. 
Gould, the successor of Dr. Hawes in the First Church min- 
istry. His remains were deposited in the North burying- 
ground beside those of his predecessor, Dr. Strong. 48 

So passed away one of the strongest and best ministers 
ever settled in the pastorate of this Church or of Con- 
necticut. Not a man of inventive, original genius, but of 
strong, practical intellect, sound judgment, fervent emotions, 
sincere piety and genial disposition, he exerted a moral influ- 
ence in the community and the State equaled by almost no 
one beside. A rugged and vigorous natural eloquence, a 



46 The address at trie funeral of Mrs. Hawes was spoken by Rev. Dr. N. J. 
Burton, then pastor of the Fourth Church. 

47 Erskine Joel Hawes, born at Hartford July 23, 1829 ; admitted member of 
First Church by profession, June, 1848 ; graduated at Yale College in 1851 ; at 
Andover Seminary in 1855 ; ordained Pastor at Plymouth, Conn., January 19, 
1858; killed by the kick of his horse, July 8, i860. A memoir of Mr. Hawes 
was written by his mother, and published by Robert Carter and Brothers, New 
York, 1863. 

48 Dr. Hawes left $1,500 as a permanent fund, the interest of which was to be 
annually divided between the American Board of Foreign Missions and the 
American Home Missionary Society. The bulk of his property (about $40,000) 
was bequeathed, after the use of it by his wife, to the children by a second mar- 
riage of Rev. H. J. Van Lennep, the husband of his daughter Mary. 

5 1 



4 02 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1818-1867. 

large and generous kindness of nature, a wise and solid sense 
of temporal and moral values, an undaunted courage and 
unconquerable will, united to make him a man respected ; 
while his tenderness of feeling and responsiveness to the 
gentler and the sadder phases of human need, made him a 
man beloved. Of singular simplicity of character, his life 
was consecrated to his work, and in it he had great success. 
Few are they whose words and deeds have turned as many 
to righteousness as Joel Hawes. 



CHAPTER XV 



NOTES OF LATER DAYS. 

About two and a half years before Dr. Hawes' death Rev. 
George H. Gould was installed in the vacant pastorate. Mr. 
Gould was born at Oakham, Mass., February 20, 1827. He 
graduated at Amherst College in 1850, and at Union Theo- 
logical Seminary in 1853 ; served as acting pastor of several 
churches, mainly at the West, till his ordination, November 
13, 1862. He had charge as acting pastor of the Olivet 
Church in Springfield, Mass., in 1863 an d '64. In the autumn 
of 1864 he was invited to the pastorate of the First Church 
in Hartford, the Church action being taken November 14th, 
and the Society November 16th. The public exercises of 
the installation took place December 14th, the various parts 
being thus assigned : Invocation, Rev. Dr. Vermilye, of the 
Connecticut Theological Institute ; Reading of Scripture, 
Rev. H. M. Parsons of Springfield; Introductory Prayer, 
Rev. Dr. S. W. S. Dutton of New Haven ; Sermon by Rev. 
Prof. Henry B. Smith of Union Theological Seminary, New 
York; Installing Prayer, Rev. Dr. Hawes; Charge, Rev. S. 
G. Buckingham of Springfield ; Right Hand of Fellowship, 
Rev. J. L. Jenkins of the Pearl Street Church ; Address to 
the People, Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon of New Haven ; Bene- 
diction by the Pastor. 

Mr. Gould's ministry was not destined to be a protracted 
one, but it was a profitable one in the history of the Church. 



404 THE F I R ST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1864-1883. 

His eloquent utterances aroused enthusiasm and were blessed 
to the awakening and conversion of not a few. One hun- 
dred and six united with the Church by confession of faith, 
and one hundred and sixty-two by letter in the five years 
and ten months of his pastorate. 

During Mr. Gould's pastorate the old minister Dr. Hawes, 
between whom and the younger man had existed the kindest 
relations, died, and the Society in 1868 purchased his library 
for the use of his successors in office, and his house for a 
parsonage. 1 

It has been mentioned hitherto 2 that a Mission had been 
for a considerable while sustained by the members of the 
First Church and Society, in the eastern part of the city. 

In 1865 Mrs. Mary A. Warburton built, at a cost of $18,- 
298, a chapel upon Temple street, on land purchased by the 
subscriptions of individual members of the First Church for 
$3,450. A charter for the school was secured in May 1866. 
In 1869 the Society by formal vote, August 27th, took this 
Mission under its care, in accordance with the terms of the 
will of Mrs. Warburton which bequeathed ten thousand dol- 
lars, the income of which was to be employed for the mainten- 
ance of preaching services in the chapel on condition that an 
equal annual amount should be contributed by the Society. 
Mrs. Warburton's will also gave the Society three thousand 
dollars as a Fund for a Teacher's Library in the Sunday- 
school of the First Church. In accordance with the vote 
adopting the Mission, ministerial services were employed at 
Warburton Chapel. 

The health of the Pastor was so precarious that on June 



1 Dr. Hawes' Will left provision for the disposal of the library to the Society 
for $75. The house was purchased of his estate for $7,500. 

2 Ante, p. 399. 



1864-1883.] NOTES OF LATER DAYS. 405 

14th, 1869, he communicated his resignation to the Church, 
which voted that he be requested to recall it, tendering him 
the assurance of assistance in his labor. The resignation 
was then recalled; but on Sept. 19th, 1870, it was renewed 
and most reluctantly accepted. The Council which officially 
recognized the termination of the mutually happy relation- 
ship of Pastor and people convened on Oct 1 1, 1870. 3 

In February 1871 a call to the pastorate was extended to 
Rev. Dr. Wm. H. Lord 4 of Montpelier, Vermont ; the Church 
voting on the 20th of the month, and the Society on the 24th. 
The overture was, however, declined. 

More than a year elapsed in unsuccessful quest of a pastor 
when, on March 18th and 19th, 1872, the Church and Society 
respectively invited to the vacant office the Rev. Elias H. 
Richardson, then of Westfield, Mass. 

The invitation being accepted Mr. Richardson was duly 
installed, April 24th, 1872. In the services of the occasion 
the Invocation was offered by Rev. Myron S. Morris of West 
Hartford ; Scripture was read by Rev. A. C. Adams of 
Wethersfield ; Prayer was offered by Rev. C. L. Goodell of 
New Britain ; Sermon by Rev. George Leon Walker of New 
Haven ; Installing Prayer by Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon of 
New Haven; Charge to Pastor by Rev. Dr. G. H. Gould of 
Worcester ; Right Hand of Fellowship by Rev. W. L. Gage 



3 Since leaving Hartford Dr. Gould has never assumed the duties of an 
installed pastor. He has, however, quite continuously supplied various pulpits, 
and stood in the relation of acting pastor to the Piedmont Church in Worcester, 
Mass., from 1872 to 1876, and to the Union Church in the same city from 1878 
to 1880. He at present resides in Worcester. He received the degree of 
Doctor in Divinity from Amherst College in 1870, while still pastor in 
Hartford. 

4 Rev. William Hayes Lord, D.D. ; born at Amherst, N. H., 1824; graduated 
at Dartmouth College, 1843; and Andover Seminary, 1846; ordained pastor at 
Montpelier, Vt., Sept. 20, 1847 ; continuing pastor there till his death, March 
18, 1877. 



4 q6 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1864-1883. 

of Pearl Street Church ; Address to People by Rev. Dr. N. 
J. Burton of Park Church ; Benediction by the Pastor. 

Mr. Richardson was born at Lebanon, N. H., Aug. 11, 1827, 
graduated at Dartmouth College in 1850, and at Andover in 
1853. He was Pastor, successively, at Goffstown and Ando- 
ver, N. H., Providence, R. I., and Westfield, Mass. He 
came to this pastorate in his forty-fifth year of age, and 
fulfilled in it a most laborious and faithful ministry of about 
six years and eight months. 

The situation of affairs in the old First Society was not 
without its difficulties. For years the tendency of popula- 
tion had been to other parts of the town at a distance from 
the church edifice. This had been a source of anxiety to 
Dr. Hawes in his later days. It could hardly fail to be so 
to Dr. Hawes' successors who saw the tendency increasing 
annually. The vacancy in the pastorate, for more than a 
year after Dr. Gould's removal, witnessed the withdrawal to 
churches nearer their new dwelling-places of some families 
whose religious home had been under the old roof. The dif- 
ficulty is one which is incident to the geographical situation 
of the old Society, and cannot fail to be an important factor 
in its future history. Mr. Richardson addressed himself to 
the problem of holding the old and winning the new with 
energy. He had somewhat special gifts for attracting the 
young and for drawing to himself those toward whom life 
was accustomed to show the shadier rather than the sunnier 
side. He was unwearied in his endeavors to be of use, to 
be a helper, and to be so especially to the poor. 

The records of the Church show the results of his faithful 
endeavors. One hundred and sixty were added to its mem- 
bership by profession during his pastorate, and one hundred 
and eighteen by letter. 



1864-1883.] NOTES OF LATER DAYS. 407 

To meet the long-felt want of a more convenient place for 
social gatherings and for the smaller evening meetings of the 
congregation, the Society in 1875,' at an expense of about six 
thousand dollars raised by voluntary subscription, erected a 
new building abutting upon the old conference house, to 
supply the important need. In 1873, also, an extension of 
the Warburton Chapel building, designed for the use of the 
primary department of the school, was built under the super- 
intendency of Messrs. George C. and Edward H. Perkins, 
at an expense of $2,900, bequeathed by Mrs. Charles Hosmer 
for this purpose. 

During Dr. 5 Richardson's pastorate occurred the series of 
meetings held in Hartford under the leadership of Mr. D. 
L. Moody and subsequently of Rev. George H. Pentecost, 
in the winter of 1877-8. In connection with these meetings 
and partly as their direct consequence a large numerical 
accession was made to the membership of the Hartford 
churches. About seventy-five names were added to the 
roll of this Church as such result. 

Dr. Richardson left the marks of his own earnest sincer- 
ity deeply engraved on many of the younger members of this 
fellowship, who first of all think of him when they think of 
their guide to Christian living. He was a man of quick and 
keen intellectual perceptions, of warm and impulsive feel- 
ings, of delicate sensibilities and devout piety. Something 
however in an original temperamental contrast between the 
Pastor and the people, discreditable to neither, but prevent- 
ive of the fullest satisfaction possible to both, made the rela- 
tionship less congenial in some of its aspects, than is 
occasionally the case. 



5 He received the degree of Doctor in Divinity during his pastorate here, 
from Dartmouth College in 1876. 



408 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1864-1883. 

In December 1878, Dr. Richardson resigned his pastorate 
here to accept that of the First Church in New Britain, 
which had been tendered" him. He was dismissed here on 
the 23d of that month, and installed there January 7, 1879. 

His pastorate at New Britain was eminently useful and 
happy. He was cut off from it in the full prime of his vigor 
and success, dying honored and beloved on the 27th of June 
1883, and being buried among the people of his latest pas- 
toral charge. A funeral address on that occasion was pro- 
nounced by Rev. N, J. Burton, D.D., of this city, and on the 
following Sabbath a biographical discourse concerning Dr. 
Richardson's life and character was delivered in the Pearl 
Street Church by Rev. Dr. W. L. Gage. He was the first 
of the ministers of this Church to die elsewhere than in 
Hartford or to be buried elsewhere than in Hartford soil. 

A memorial volume, compiled by a committee of the First 
Church in New Britain, printed shortly after his death for 
circulation among his friends, fitly enshrines the memory of 
a good man and a faithful minister of Jesus Christ. 

The present Pastor was installed February 27, 1879. 6 

Among the incidents which may be mentioned as having 
occurred during the existing pastorate, is the payment in 
the autumn of 1879 of the long accumulating debt of the 
Society, then amounting to about $23,000, — a debt going 
back in considerable portion to the purchase of pews by the 
Society, beginning in 1828. 7 



°The public exercises of the occasion were held in the afternoon of the day, 
and were as follows : Reading the Result of the Council, by Rev. E. C. Starr, 
of the Wethersfield Avenue Church; Scripture Reading and Prayer, Rev. E. 
Y. Hincks, Portland, Me.; Sermon (afterwards published) by Rev. Dr. Leonard 
P>acon of New Haven, from Rev. ii, 13 ; Installing Prayer, Rev. Dr. N. J. Bur- 
ton ; Charge, Rev. Prof. W. M. Barbour of Yale College ; Fellowship of the 
Churches, Rev. Dr. E. P. Parker; Address to People, Rev. Dr. G. H. Gould ; 
Prayer, Rev. Dr. E. H. Richardson of New Britain ; Benediction by the Pastor. 

1 Ante, p. 392. A list of the subscribers to the extinguishment of this debt 
may be found in Appendix XV. 



1864-1883.] NOTES OF LATER DAYS. 409 

New windows of stained glass were introduced throughout 
the church edifice in the autumn of 1880; and on Easter 
Sabbath morning, in April 1881, a large memorial window 
back of the pulpit, the gift of Mr. Samuel Hamilton, was 
first beheld. 8 

Early in 1883 the attention of the Church and Society was 
directed to the propriety of the due celebration of the Two 
Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary of the organization of the 
Church, and committees on the subject were appointed. A 
strong degree of interest in the subject was developed, and 
the occasion was regarded as affording opportunity for secur- 
ing certain renovations of the appearance of the church 
edifice and conference-room, which were deemed desirable. 
Liberal contributions were given for the object and both 
interiors were tastefully and beautifully frescoed. 9 The 
question of a new organ had been referred by the Society to 
a committee at the annual meeting of this year, but all 
necessity of effort was superseded by the generous offer of 
Mrs. Leonard Church, to present one as a memorial of her- 
self and her husband to the Society. This liberal purpose 
was carried out at an expense to that lady of $15,000. The 
beautiful old mahogany case of the organ of 1835 was re- 
tained. 10 

Hon. Julius Catlin caused about the same time the inser- 
tion of a beautiful memorial window. 

These and various other preparations having been made 
in the summer months of 1883, the commemorative celebra- 



8 Mr. Hamilton died on the May nth following, aged 82 years. 

9 These improvements were carried out under the direction of the Society's 
committee, Messrs. W. W. House, J. C. Parsons, and C. A. Jewell. 

10 The organ was built by Mr. Hilborne L. Roosevelt of New York, and cer- 
tain particulars concerning the really magnificent instrument may be found in 
Appendix XVI. 

52 



410 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. [1864-1883. 

tion of the organization of the Church took place, with 
entire satisfaction to the members of the congregation and 
the large number of invited guests, on October nth and 
1 2th. A full report of the proceedings appeared in the 
Courant of the 12th and 13th, and a handsome memorial vol- 
ume containing them in a form suited to permanent preser- 
vation, and illustrated by various heliotype engravings, was 
soon after published at the cost of the subscribed celebration 
fund. 11 

One of the most saddening considerations arising from 
such a retrospect as has been attempted in the foregoing 
pages, is the inevitable necessity of passing over unrecorded 
the faithfulness and devotion of a multitude whose lives 
have been woven into the life of this ancient Church. It 
touches one with a sense of pathos and almost of anger 
to think how much of sweetness and nobleness in private 
piety in all these years ; how much of faithfulness and self- 
sacrifice, of parental solicitude and of individual consecrated 
endeavor in the brotherhood of this Church has been passed 
over untold; nay, has perished utterly from human remem- 
brance. The deeds, the experiences, the hopes, the cares, 
and even the names of this two-and-a-half -century compan- 
ionship are, and must forever remain, unknown. 

But unrecorded in the memories of men, they abide in the 
better registry of His mind and heart who in all this dura- 
tion has been this Church's guide and head. 



11 For the Order of Exercises on the occasion of the celebration see Appen- 
dix XVII. That programme will indicate to a large extent the contents of the 
memorial volume. All the addresses and papers were printed in it, together 
with an account of Preliminary Proceedings on the part of Church and Soci- 
ety; Letters of Invited Guests; and Heliotype Illustrations of the Exterior and 
Interior of the Present Church Edifice, the Old Burying Ground, and the Char- 
ter Oak ; to which were added also Card of Invitation, a copy of Porter's Map 
of Hartford in 1640, and Portraits of Pastors Strong, Hawes, Calkins, Gould, 
Richardson, and Walker. The volume is of 215 pages, and six hundred copies 
were printed. 



1864-1883.] NOTES OF LATER DAYS. 4 U 

What the future of this Church's history is to be, only 
time can unfold. Certain obvious facts make the course of 
events even harder to forecast than is sometimes the case. 
The tendency of population away from the old central por- 
tion of the town seems destined to increase. The numbers 
of elderly men and women in the congregation who cannot 
long remain, but who in their regretted departure will leave 
no lineal representatives behind them, is certainly quite unu- 
sual in churches of younger history. 

Meantime, with a membership of about five hundred and 
fifty, enriched still with new blood from the old veins and 
by accessions from the community around ; possessed yet as 
a Society of large though of diminished wealth and rich 
with the traditions of the past, there is no occasion for these 
pages to conclude in a somber strain. Piety and liberality 
still have their home in the old fellowship. Faithful laborers 
in the Sabbath 12 and Mission School 13 are still untiring in 
their work. The past, though in much of it an occasion of 
reasonable pride, is not an experience to be repeated or to be 
desired could it come again. The kingdom of God is yet 
future. And for a share in the labor and faith which looks 
for it and hastens its approach, the old First Church of Hart- 
ford may be trusted still to claim an inherited and a loyally 
appropriated right. 



12 It is certainly worthy of record that the infant class of the Sunday-School, 
still large and flourishing, has been for forty-four years under the charge of one 
faithful laborer, Mrs. Amelia W. Brown ; thus loved and honored by successive 
generations of the young of the Church. 

13 The altered character of the population in the vicinity of Warburton Chapel 
has demonstrated (after repeated experiments) the impossibility of maintaining 
successfully, formal preaching services in accordance with the precise terms of 
Mrs. Warburton's bequest. As a mission field, however, the needs were never 
greater. With altered character the work is and will continue to be carried on. 
Nor was it ever more earnestly prosecuted than under the leadership of the 
Superintendent, who now for some years has given to it so much of time, 
money, and care — Mr. Daniel R. Howe. 



PASTORS AND CHURCH OFFICERS. 



PASTORS. 



Rev. Thomas Hooker was ordained Pastor October n, 1633, and 
died July 7, 1647, in the 6istyear of his age, having served the Church 
thirteen years and nine months. 

Rev. Samuel Stone was ordained Teacher October 11, 1633, and 
died July 20, 1663, in his 61st year, having served the Church twenty- 
nine years and nine months, of which thirteen years and nine months 
were in connection with Mr. Hooker ; thirteen years he had sole charge 
of the Church, and about three years in connection with his associate 
and successor, Rev. John Whiting. 

Rev. John Whiting was ordained colleague with Mr. Stone early in 
1660, and served the Church ten years, till February 22, 1670, when he 
became Pastor of the Second Church in Hartford. Of the ten years of 
Mr. Whiting's service, about three were in connection with Rev. Mr. 
Stone ; three years he was sole Pastor, and four years were in connec- 
tion with his associate and successor Rev. Mr. Haynes. He died 
November 1689, aged 50 years. 

Rev. Joseph Haynes was ordained colleague with Mr. Whiting 
sometime in 1664, and died May 24, 1679, aged 38 years. He served 
the Church fifteen years, four years in connection with Mr. Whiting, 
and eleven as sole Pastor. 

Rev. Isaac Foster was ordained Pastor early in 1680, and died 
August 20, 1682, aged about 30 years, having served the Church two 
years and some months. 

Rev. Timothy Woodbridge, after having ministered to the congre- 
gation more than two years, was ordained Pastor November 1685, and 
died April 30, 1732, aged 79 years, having sustained the Pastoral rela- 
tion forty-six years and six months, and ministered to the Church nearly 
forty-nine years. 

Rev. Daniel Wadsworth was ordained Pastor September 28, 
1732, and died November 12, 1747, in the 43d year of his age, having 
served the Church fifteen years and two months. 



PASTORS AND CHURCH OFFICERS. 



413 



Rev. Edward Dorr was ordained Pastor April 27, 1748, and died 
October 20, 1772, in his 50th year, having served the Church twenty- 
four years and five months. 

Rev. Nathan Strong was ordained Pastor January 5, 1774, and 
died December 25, 1816, in the 69th year of his age, having served the 
Church forty-two years and eleven months. 

Rev. Joel Hawes was ordained Pastor March 4, 1818; resigned the 
Pastoral care May 5, 1864 ; and died June 5, 1867, in the 78th year of 
his age, having sustained pastoral relations to the Church forty-nine 
years and three months, of which period he was sole Pastor forty-four 
years and seven months, senior Pastor one year and six months, and 
Pastor emeritus three years. 

Rev. Wolcott Calkins was ordained Associate Pastor with Dr. 
Hawes October 22, 1862, and dismissed July 6, 1864, having served the 
Church as Associate Pastor one year and nine months. 

Rev. George H. Gould was installed Pastor December 14, 1864, 
and dismissed October 11, 1870, having served the Church five years 
and ten months. 

Rev. Elias H. Richardson was installed Pastor April 24, 1872, and 
dismissed January 1, 1879, having served the Church six years and 
eight months. 

Rev. George Leon Walker was installed Pastor February 27, 
1879. 

RULING ELDER. 

William Goodwin, in office, it is supposed, October 11, 1633, and 
who removed from Hartford in 1660, and died in March, 1673. 

DEACONS. 
Andrew Warner, in office October 1633, removed to Hadley, Mass. 

with Elder Goodwin, in 1660, where he died, 1684. 
Edward Stebbins, died August 166S. 
Joseph Mygat, died 1680, aged 84. 
Richard Butler, died August 1684. 

Paul Peck, chosen April 1691, died December 1695, aged 87. 
Joseph Easton, chosen April 1691, died January 171 2. 
Joseph Olmstead, chosen April 1691, died November 1726. 
John Sheldon, chosen 171 2, died February 1734. 
John Shepherd, chosen 171 2, died March 1736. 
Thomas Richards, chosen 1 712, died April 1749, aged 83. 
Nathaniel Goodwin, chosen March 1734, died March 1747, aged 79. 
John Edwards, chosen March 1734, died May 1769, aged 75. 
Joseph Talcott, chosen December 1748, died November 1799, a & e d 98 



414 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Ozias Goodwin, chosen January 1756, died January 1776, aged 87. 

Daniel Goodwin, chosen 1769, died January 1772, aged 67. 

Benjamin Payne, died January 1782, aged 54. 

John Shepard, died April 1789, aged 80. 

Solomon Smith, died April 1786, aged 52. 

Caleb Bull, died February 1797, aged 51. 

Ezra Corning, died July 18 16, aged 79. 

Isaac Bull, chosen 1789, died November 1824, aged 84. 

Joseph Steward, chosen 1797, died April 1822, aged 69. 

Aaron Chapin, chosen October 1813, died December 1838, aged 85. 

Aaron Colton, chosen October 1813, died June 1840, aged 81. 

Josiah Beckwith, chosen October 1813, died January 1827, aged 64. 

Russell Bunce, chosen November 1821, died April 1846, aged 69. 

William W. Ellsworth, chosen November 1821, died January 1868, 

aged 79. 
William W. Turner, chosen September 1828, resigned October 1852. 
Thomas S. Williams, chosen October 1836, died December 1861, 

aged 84. 
Thomas Smith, chosen March 1838, resigned October 1852. 
Melvin Copeland, chosen September 1840, died March 1866, aged 69. 
John Beach, chosen August 1844, resigned October 1852. 
Lewis Weld, chosen November 1846, died December 1853, aged $7. 
Samuel S. Ward, chosen November 1852, died December 1879, aged 7^- 
Bryan E. Hooker, chosen November 1852, resigned March 1874. 
Loyal Wilcox, chosen January 1854, resigned January 1861. 
George W. Corning, chosen January 1854. 

Samuel M. Capron, chosen February 1861, left by letter July 1866. 
Collins Stone, chosen December 1863, died December 1870, aged 58. 
Daniel W. Brigham, chosen December 1863, left by letter June 1870. 
Rowland Swift, chosen May 1867, resigned February 1874. 
Homer Blanchard, chosen November 1869. 

Lucius Barbour, chosen November 1869, died February 1873, aged 67. 
William S. Hurd, chosen March 1874, died July 1876, aged 67. 
William W. House, chosen March 1874, term expired 1878. 
Henry P. Stearns, chosen March 1874, term expired 1879. 
William H. Miller, chosen March 1874, term expired 1880. 
John Allen, chosen March 1878, term expired 1884. 
William W. House, chosen January 1879, term expired 1882. 
Daniel R. Howe, chosen February 1880, term expired 1881. 
Henry P. Stearns, chosen February 1880, term expired 1883. 
Rowland Swift, chosen February 1881. 
Henry E. Taintor, chosen February 1882. 
W. W. House, chosen February 1883. 
Samuel M. Hotchkiss, chosen February 1884. 



PASTORS AND CHURCH OFFICERS. 4^ 

PRUDENTIAL COMMITTEE. 

[Committee constituted by vote of Church September 7, 182 1.] 

Russell Bunce, chosen September 1821, chosen deacon 1821. 

William W. Ellsworth, chosen September 1821, chosen deacon 1821. 

Normand Smith, chosen September 1821, left office 1823. 

Caleb Goodwin, chosen September 1821, left office 1823. 

James R. Woodbridge, chosen September 1821, left office 1823. 

Henry Hudson, chosen September 1821, left office 1841. 

William Watson, chosen January 1824, left office November 1836. 

Peter Thatcher, chosen January 1824, left office 1845. 

Eli Gilman, chosen January 1824, left office 1842. 

Roderick Terry, chosen January 1824, left office 1832. 

Robert Anderson, chosen January 1824, left office 1832. 

Melvin Copeland, chosen January 1832, left office 1835. 

James R. Woodbridge, chosen January 1832, left office 1837. 

Lewis Weld, chosen February 1835, left office 1838. 

Edward Goodwin, chosen January 1837, died October 1883. 

Thomas Smith, chosen January 1837, chosen deacon 1838. 

Barzillai Hudson, chosen March 1838, left office 1871. 

Whiting Hollister, chosen March 1838, left office 1843. 

John Beach, chosen January 1842, chosen deacon 1844. 

Calvin Day, chosen January 1843. 

Bela Turner, chosen January 1844, left office 1845. 

Henry A. Perkins, chosen January 1845, left office 1866. 

James M. Bunce, chosen January 1846, left office 1852. 

John O. Pitkin, chosen January 1846, left office 1851. 

Collins Stone, chosen January 1851, left office 1852. 

Charles A. Goodrich, chosen January 1853, left office 1858. 

William W. House, chosen January 1853, chosen deacon 1874. 

Loyal Wilcox, chosen January 1853, chosen deacon 1854. 

Leonard Church, chosen January 1859, ^ e ^ office 1872. 

Lucius Barbour, chosen February 1866, chosen deacon 1869. 

Alfred R. Skinner, chosen February 1870, left office 1879. 

William S. Hurd, chosen February 1872, chosen deacon 1874. 

James P. Foster, chosen February 1873, left office 1876. 

George Roberts, chosen February 1875, left office 1878. 

William M. Hudson, chosen February 1875. 

John Allen, chosen February 1876, chosen deacon 1878. 

Samuel M. Hotchkiss, chosen March 1878, chosen deacon 1884. 

Melancthon Storrs, chosen March 1879. 

Francis B. Cooley, chosen March 1880. 

Daniel H. Wells, chosen February 1884. 

George R. Shepherd, chosen February 1884. 



APPENDICES 



53 



APPENDIX I. 

(SEE PAGE 8j.) 



ORIGINAL PROPRIETORS AND SETTLERS. 

The names which follow are taken from a list in the handwriting of 
John Allyn, and certified to by him on the Town Records in 1665, which 
list was by him copied from a record made in 1639, now only partially 
decipherable, giving the names of " The proprietors of the undivided 
lands in Hartford." The figures annexed to the names are in part 
transferred from the original first record, and express the amount of 
land allotted in divisions made at two different times, according to the 
" proportions payed for the purchass of sayd lands." 



Mr. John Haines, 


200. 


John Crow, 


40, 20. 


Mr. George Willis, 


200. 


John Moodey, 


40. 


Mr. Edward Hopkins, 


120. 


Thomas Standley, 


42. 


Mr. Thomas Wells, 


100. 


Timothy Standley, 


36, 32. 


Mr. John Webster, 


100. 


Edward Stebbing, 


28, 24. 


Mr. Thomas Hooker, 


80. 


Andrew Bacon, 


28. 


Mr. Samuel Stone, 


40. 


John Bernard, 


24. 


Mr. Wm. Goodwine, 


56. 


Gregory Winterton, 


28. 


Mr. Wm. Whittinge, 


100. 


Samuel Wakeman, 


35, 30. 


Mr. Matthew Allyn, 


no. 


William Gibbons, 


22, 20. 


Mr. John Tallcott, 


90 


John Pratt, 


26. 


James Olmsteed, 


75, 7o. 


Richard Goodman, 


26. 


William Westwood, 


80. 


Nathaniel Elly, 


20, 18. 


William Pantrey, 


85, 80. 


William Ruscoe, 


35, 32. 


Andrew Warner, 


84. 


James Ensigne, 


24. 


John Steele, 


50, 48. 


John Hopkins, 


26, 24. 


Nathaniel Warde, 


56, 60. 


George Steele, 


26. 


John White, 


50. 


Steven Post, 


30, 24. 


William Wadsworth, 


52. 


Thomas Judd, 


25, 20. 


Thomas Hosmore, 


58, 60. 


Thomas Birchwood, 


26. 


Thomas Scott, 


42. 


John Clarke, 


28, 22. 


William Lewis, 


40, 38. 


Matthew Marvell, 


30, 28. 


William Spencer, 


30, 40. 


William Butler, 


28. 


William Andrewes, 


33, 30. 


Thomas Lord, 


28. 


Steven Heart, 


40. 


John Skinner, 


22, 10. 



420 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



John^Marsh, 


24, 


12. 


Thomas Stanton, 


16, 14. 


Richard Lord, 




18. 


Thomas Hales, 


10. 


Richard Webb, 




30. 


Zachary Field, 


10. 


John Maynard, 




14. 


Thomas Roote, 


8,6. 


William Kellsey, 




16. 


William Parker 


13, 12. 


Jeremy Adams, 




30. 


Seth Grant, 


14. 


Robert Daye, 




14. 


William Pratt, 


8,6. 


Thomas Spencer, 


15, 


14. 


Samuel Hales, 


8. 


Nathaniel Richards, 




26. 


Richard Olmsteed, 


10,8. 


Richard Lyman, 




30. 


John Baysey, 


14. 


Joseph Mygatt, 




20. 


Joseph Easton, 


10. 


William Blumfield, 




16. 


Thomas Selden, 


6. 


Richard Butler, 




16. 


Frances Andrewes 


10, 12. 


George Grave, 




24. 


Richard Church, 


20, 12. 


Arthur Smith, 




14. 


William Hide, 


20, 18. 


William Hill, 




20. 


Richard Wrisley, 


8. 


Thomas Olcok, 


3> 


i,8. 


William Holton, 


12. 


James Coale, 


12, 


10. 


Robert Bartlett, 


8. 


John Arnold, 




16. 


Edward Elmer, 


14, 12. 


Thomas Bull, 


14, 


12. 


Jonathan Ince. 




George Stocking, 




20. 


John Cullick, 


58, 30. 


William Hey den, 




14. 


John Higginson, 


12. 


Nicholas Clarke, 


13, 


12. 







There was another class of settlers, concerning whom Mr. Allyn, 
before recording their names, makes the following entry : " The names 
of such inhabitants as were granted lotts to have onely at the town's 
courtesie, with liberty to fetch wood and keepe swine or cowes on the 
Common." 



John Brunson, 


10,3. 


Hosea Goodwin, 


10, 6. 


John Warner, 


6. 


Robert Wade, 


6,4. 


William Cornwell, 


8. 


John Olmsteed, 


4,3- 


Thomas Woodford, 


8,6. 


Benjamin Munn, 


8. 


John Biddell, 


6,4. 


Daniel Garwood, 


6. 


Ralph Keylor, 


6. 


John Hall, 


6. 


Thomas Lord, Jr., 


6. 


John Morrice, 


8, 6. 


John Hollaway, 


6. 


Nathaniel Barding, 


6. 


Nathaniel Kellog, 


6,4. 


John Ginnings, 


6. 


Thomas Barnes, 


6. 


Paul Pecke, 


8. 


Richard Seymour, 




George Hubbard, 


6. 


John Purcasse, 


6. 


Thomas Blisse, 


6. 


William Phillips, 


8, 6. 


Thomas Blisse, Jr., 


4- 


Nicholas Disbroe, 


6. 


Edward Lay, 


6. 


Benjamin Burre, 


6. 


Thomas Gridley, 


6. 





APPEJ 


JDIX I. 


421 


John Sables, 


6. 


Henry Walkley, 


4- 


John Pierce, 


4,3- 


Thomas Upson, 


4- 


Giles Smith, 


8. 


Widdowe Betts, 


4- 


Richard Watts, 


8,6. 


Thomas Bunce, 


13. 


William Westley, 


8, 6. 


William Watts, 


4- 


Thomas Richards, 


8. 







In addition to the above, it appears to be in evidence that the follow- 
ing named persons owned lots previous to 1639, or took the shares of 
some of the foregoing persons on forfeiture at a period shortly later : 

Bartholomew Greene, Samuel Whitehead, 

John Stone, John Friend, 

Samuel Greenhill, Abram Pratt, 

Clement Chapling, Thomas Goodfellow, 

Dorothy Chester, Thomas Munson, 

Thomas Beale, Thomas Hongerforth, 

Thomas Fisher, Reynold Marvin. 



APPENDIX II. 

(SEE PAGE II5.) 
THOMAS HOOKER'S WILL AND INVENTORY OF ESTATE. 

The last Will and Testament of Mr. Thomas Hooker, late of Hart- 
ford, deceased. 

I, Thomas Hooker, of Hartford, vppon Connecticutt in New England, 
being weake in my body, through the tender visitation of the Lord, but 
of sound and perfect memory, doe dispose of that outward estate I haue 
beene betrusted withall by him, in manner following : — 

I doe giue vnto my sonne John Hooker, my howsing and lands in 
Hartford, aforesaid, both that which is on the west and allso that w ci is 
on the east side of the Riuer, to bee inioyed by him and his heires for 
euer, after the death of my wife, Susanna Hooker, provided hee bee then 
at the age of one and twenty yeares ; it being my will that my said deare 
wife shall inioye and possess my said howsing and lands during her nat- 
urall life : And if shee dye before my sonne John come to the age of 
one and twenty yeares, that the same bee improued by the ou r seers of 
this my will for the maintenance and education of my children not dis- 
posed of, according to their best discretion. 

I doe allso giue vnto my sonne John, my library of printed bookes and 
manuscripts, vnder the limitations and provisoes hereafter expressed- 
It is my will that my sonne John deliuer to my sonne Samuell, so many 
of my bookes as shall be Valued by the ou'seers of this my will to bee 
worth fifty pounds sterling, or that hee shall pay him the some of fifty 
pounds sterling to buy such bookes as may bee vseful to him in the way 
of his studdyes, at such time as the ouerseers of this my will shall judge 
meete ; but if my sonne John doe not goe on to the perfecting of his 
studdyes, or shall not giue vpp himselfe to the seruice of the Lord in the 
worke of the ministry, my will is that my sonne Samuel inioye and pos- 
sesse the whole library and manuscripts, to his proper vse for euer; 
onely it is my will that whateuer manuscripts shall be judged meete to 
be printed, the disposall thereof and advantage that may come thereby 
I leaue wholly to my executrix ; and in case shee departs this life before 
the same bee judged of and setled, then to my ouerseers to be improued 
by them to theire best discretion, for the good of myne, according to the 
trust reposed in them. And howeuer I do not forbid my sonne John 



APPENDIX II. 



423 



from seeking and taking a wife in England, yet I doe forbid him from 
marrying and tarrying there. 

I doe giue vnto my sonne Samuell, in case the whole library come not 
to him, as is before expressed, the sum of seuenty pounds, to bee paid 
vnto him by my executrix at such time, and in such manner, as shall be 
judged meetest by the ouerseers of my will. 

I doe allso giue vnto my daughter Sarah Hooker, the sum of one hun- 
dred pounds sterling, to bee paid vnto her by my executrix when she 
shall marry or come of the age of one and twenty yeares, w ch shall first 
happen ; the disposall and further education of her and the rest, I leaue 
my wife, advising them to attend her councell in the feare of the Lord. 

I doe giue vnto the two children of my daughter Joannah Shepard 
deceased, and the childe of my daughter Mary Newton, to each of them 
the sum of ten pounds, to bee paid vnto them by my sonne John, within 
one yeare after hee shall come to the possession and inioyment of my 
howsings and lands in Hartford, or my sonne Samuell, if by the decease 
of John, hee come to inioye the same. 

I doe make my beloued wife Susanna Hooker, executrix of this my 
last Will and Testament, and (my just debts being paid,) do giue and 
bequeath vnto her all my estate and goods, moueable and imouable, not 
formerly bequeathed by this my will. And I desire my beloued frends 
Mr. Edward Hopkins and Mr. William Goodwyn, to affoard theire best 
assistance to my wife, and doe constitute and appoint them the ouer- 
seers of this my will. And it hauing pleased the Lord now to visitt my 
wife with a sicknes, and not knowing how it may please his Ma tie to dis- 
pose of her, my minde and will is, that in case shee departe this life be- 
fore shee dispose the estate bequeathed her, my aforesaid beloued 
frends, Mr. Edward Hopkins and Mr. William Goodwyn, shall take care 
both of the education and dispose of my children (to whose loue and 
faithfullnes I commend them) and of the estate left and bequeathed to 
my wife, and do committ it to theire best judgment and discretion to 
manage the said estate for the best good of mine, and to bestow it 
vppon any or all of them in such a proportion as shall bee most suitable 
to theire owne ap'hensions ; being willing onely to intimate my desire 
that they w ch deserue best may haue most ; but not to limmitt them, but 
leaue them to the full scope and bredth of their owne judgments ; in the 
dispose whereof, they may haue respect to the forementioned children 
of my two daughters, if they see meet. It being my full will that what 
trust I haue comitted to my wife, either in matter of estate, or such 
manuscripts as shall bee judged rltt to bee printed, in case shee Hue not 
to order the same herselfe, bee wholly transmitted and passed ouer from 
her to them, for the ends before specified. And for mortallity sake, I 
doe put power into the hands of the forementioned beloued freinds, to 
constitute and appoint such other faithfull men as they shall judge meete 



424 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



(in case they be depriued of life or libberty to attend to the same in 
theire owne persons) to manage, dispose and performe the estate and 
trust comitted to them, in as full manner as I haue comitted it to them 
for the same end. 

THOMAS HOOKER. 

This was declared to bee the last Will and 
Testament of Mr. Thomas Hooker, the 
seuenth day of July, 1647. 
In the presence of 

Henry Smith, 
Samuell Stone, 
John White. 



An Inventory of the Estate of Mr. Thomas Hooker, 
Deceased, taken the 21 st Aprill, 1649. 

In the new Parlour ; It. : 3 chaires, 2 stooles, 6 cushions, a 
clock, a safe, a table, window curtaines, &c, 

In the Hall ; It. : a chest of drawers, and in it, 2 dozen of 
dishes, a pewter flagon, basons, candlesticks, 



£ 


s. 


d. 


05 


00 


00 


06 


00 


00 


[05 


00 


00] 



It. : in ammunition, 4I. It. : in a table and forme, 
and 4 wheeles, il., ----_. 

In the ould Parlour ; It.: 2 tables, a forme, 4 chaires, 4 
stooles, 4 table carpetts, window curtaines, and- 
irons and doggs, &c, in the chimny, - - - 09 00 00 

In the Cha?nber ouer that ; It. : a featherbed and boulster, 
2 pillowes, a strawbed, 2 blankitts, a rugg, and 
couerlitt, darnix hangings in 7 peeces, window 
curtaines, curtaines and valence to the bed, a bed- 
stead, 2 chaires, and three stooles, andirons, &c, 
in the $ chimny, & a courte cubberd, - - - 14 05 00 
It. : curtaines and valence to the same bed, of 
greene say, and a rugg of the same, with window 
curtaines, - - - - - - - -05 00 00 

In the Hall Chamber; It. : a trunck of Hnnen, cont. : 20 
p r sheets, 8 table cloaths, 5 doz. napkins, 6 p 1 of 
pillow beers, and towells, - - - - - 27 00 00 
It. . a bedstead, two truncks, 2 boxes, a chest, 
& a chaire, 03 05 00 



APPENDIX II. 



425 



In the Kittchin Chamber j It. : a featherbed, a quilt bed, 
2 blankitts, 2 couerlitts, 1 boulster, a flockbed 
and boulster, a rugg and blankitt, a chest & 
ould trunck, and a bedstead, - - - - 12 00 00 

In the Chcnnber ouer the new Parlour ; It. : 2 featherbeds, 
2 boulsters, a p r of pillows, 5 blankitts and 2 ruggs, 
stript valence and curtaines for bed and windowes, 
a chest of drawers, an alarum, 2 boxes, a small 
trunck, 2 cases of bottles, 1 p 1 ' of dogs, in the 
chimney, - - 21 00 00 

In the Garritts : It. : in corne and hogg-sheads and other 

houshould lumber, - 14 15 00 

Jt. : in apparrell and plate, - - - - - 40 00 00 

In the Kittchin j It. : 2 brass kettles, 3 brass potts, 2 
chafing dishes, 2 brass skilletts, a brass morter, a 
brass skimmer, and 2 ladles, 2 iron potts, 2 iron 
skilletts, a dripping pann, 2 kettles, 2 spitts and a 
jack, a p v of cobirons, a p 1 ' of andirons, a p r of 
doggs, fire shouell and tongs, 2 frying panns, a 
warming pann, a gridiron, 7 pewter dishes, 2 por- 
ringers, 1 p r of bellowes, a tinn dripping pann, a 
roster, and 2 tyn couers, pott hooks and tram- 
mells, all valued at - - - - - -121000 

In the Brew Howsej It. : a copper mash tubbs, payles, 
treyes, &c, -------- 

In the Sellars j It. : 2 stills and dairy vessels, - 
It. : in yearne ready for the weauer, - 
It. : 2 oxen, 2 mares, 1 horse, 2 colts, 8 cowes, 
and 2 heifers, 3 two yeares ould and 6 yearlings, 
valued at-- 

It.: Husbandry implements, -• 

It. : Howsing and Lands within the bounds of 

Hartford, on both sides the Riuer, 

It. : Bookes in his studdy, &c, valued at - 
It. : an adventure in the Entrance, 

1 136 15 00 

The foregoing perticulars were prised the day and yeare aboue writ- 
ten, according to such light as at p 1 sent appeared, 

by Nathaniell Ward, 
Edward Stebbing. 
54 



■ 04 


10 


00 


■ 06 


00 


00 


■ 03 

> 


00 


00 


■ 143 


00 


■00 


■ 05 


00 


00 


■ 450 


00 


00 


■ 300 


00 


00 


• 50 


00 


00 



APPENDIX III. 

(see page i i 6.) 

POEMS ON THE DEATH OF HOOKER. 

In obitum viri Doctissimi Thomae Hookeri, Pastoris Ecclesiae Hertfordiensis, Novangliae 

Collegae sui. 

A Starre of heaven whose beams were very bright, 

Who was a burning and a shining light, 

Did shine in our Horizon fourteen years, 

Or thereabout, but now he disappears : 

July the seventh six hundred fourtie-seaven, 

His blessed soul ascended up to heaven. 

He was a man exceeding rich in truth ; 

He stored up rich treasures from his youth. 

While he was in the University ; 

His light did shine, his parts were very high. 

When he was fellow of Emmanuell 

Much learning in his solid head did dwell. 

His knowledge in Theologie Divine 

In Chehnesford lectures divers years did shine. 

Dark Scriptures he most clearly did expound, 

And that great mystery of Christ profound. 

He had a singular clear insight, in 

The soul's conversion unto God from sin : 

And in what method men come to inherit 

Both Christ and all his fullnesse by the Spirit. 

He made the truth appear by light of reason, 

And spake most comfortable words in season. 

To poor distressed sinners and contrite, . 

And such as to the Promises had right ; 

Which did revive their hearts and make them wonder : 

And in reproof he was a sonne of Thunder. 

He spake the Word with such authority, 

That many from themselves to Christ did fly. 

His preaching was full of the holy Ghost, 

Whose presence in him We admired most. 

He did excell in Mercy, Peace, and Love, 



APPENDIX III. 

Was Lion-like in courage, yet a Dove. 

He from the largenesse of his royall heart, 

His treasures was most ready to impart. 

To many Ministers he was a father ; 

Who from his light much pleasant light did gather. 

The principles he held were clear and strong : 

He was to truth a mighty pillar long. 

I can affirm I know no man more free 

From Errors in his judgement than was he. 

His holy heart delighted much to act 

The will of God, wherein he was exact. 

No other way could with his spirit suit ; 

His conversation was full of fruit. 

He was abundant in the work of God, 

Untill death came, and heaven was his abod. 

At his last clause Christ found him doing well, 

His blamelesse life but few can parallel. 

The peace he had full thirty years agoe 

At death was firm, not touched by the foe. 

Of all his daies and times, the last were best : 

The end of such is peace, he is at rest. 

His lipps, they were a spring and tree of life, 

Unto his people, family and wife, 

In which much wisdome, health and grace was found, 

Are sealed up and buried under ground. 

If any to this Platform can reply 
With better reason, let this volume die : 
But better argument if none can give, 
Then Thomas Hookers Policy shall live. 

. SAM. STONE, 
Teaching Elder of the same Church at Hartford with him. 

In sepulchrum Reverendissimi viri, fratris charissimi M. THO. HOOKERI. 

America, although she doe not boast 

Of all the gold and silver from this Coast, 

Lent to her sister Europe 's need or pride, 

(For that's repaid her, with much gain beside, 

In one rich Pearl, which Heavens did thence afford, 

As pious Herbert gave his honest word) 

Yet thinkes SHE in the Catalogue may come 

With Europe, Africke, Asia, for ONE TOM BE. 

E. ROGERS. 



427 



428 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



On my Reverend and dear Brother, Mr. THOMA S HOOKER, late Pastor of the Church 
at Hartford, on Connectiquot. 

To see three things was holy Austins wish, 
Rome in her Flower, Christ Jesus in the Flesh, 
And Paul i' the Pulpit ; Lately men might see, 
Two first, and more, in Hookers Ministry. 

Zion in Beauty, is a fairer sight, 

Than Ro?ne in Flower, with all her Glory dight : 

Yet Zions beauty did most clearly shine, 

In Hookers Rule, and Doctrine ; both Divine. 

Christ in the Spirit is more then Christ in Flesh, 
Our Souls to quicken, and our States to blesse : 
Yet Christ in Spirit brake forth mightily, 
In Faithfull Hookers searching Ministry. 

Paul in the Pulpit, Hooker could not reach, 
Yet did He Christ in Spirit so lively Preach : 
That living Hearers thought He did inherit 
A double Portion of Pauls lively spirit. 

Prudent in Rule, in Argument quick, full ; 
Fervent in Prayer, in Preaching powerfull : 
That well did learned Ames record bear, 
The like to Him He never wont to hear. 

'Twas of Genevans Worthies said with wonder, 
(Those Worthies Three :) Farell was wont to Thunder ; 
Viret, like Rain, on tender grasse to shower, 
But Calvin lively Oracles to pour. 

All these in Hookers spirit did remain : 

A Sonne of Thunder, and a shower of Rain, 

A pourer forth of lively Oracles, 

In saving souls, the summe of miracles. 

Now blessed Hooker, thou art set on high, 

Above the thanklesse world and cloudy sky : 

Doe thou of all thy labour reape-the Crown, 

Whilst we here reape the seed, which thou hast sowen. 

J. COTTON. 



APPENDIX IV. 

SEE PAGE 117. 
NOTES OF MR. HOOKER'S SERMON. 

The following notes and comments were kindly furnished by Dr. J. 
H. Trumbull : 

FROM DEACON MATTHEW GRANT'S MSS. NOTES. 

[Mr. Hooker died Wednesday, July 7, 1647. " The last Lord's day of 
his public ministry, when he administered the Lord's Supper" to his 
Church, must have been either June 27th or July 4th. At the end of 
these notes of a sermon preached June 20th, Deacon Grant wrote : 

"Mr. Hooker was buried 18 days after he preached this sermon." 

There is an allusion under Doctrine the 3d to objections made to the 
adoption of a Church covenant by the Windsor church. Some weeks 
after Mr. Hooker's death (Aug. 15, 1647) Mr. Warham preached " upon 
the matter and form of a church " (from I Cor. 1: 2) " and upon baptiz- 
ing children." October 23, 1647, the Windsor church adopted a form 
of Covenant, of which the only record is in Deacon Grant's note-book. 
I find no evidence of any earlier "explicit" Covenant in that church.] 

"June 20, 1647. A sermon preached at Windsor by Mr. Hooker, 
pastor of Hartford, whilst Mr. Warham was absent in the Bay. The 
text, Rom. 1: 18, — 'For the wrath of God is revealed from Heaven 
against all unrighteousness,' etc. In the words are three things to be 
considered : First, the condition of all men by nature ; ungodly, 
unrighteous. 2dly, the evidence of this condition: ' They hold down 
the truth in unrighteousness.' 3dly, God's displeasure against these 
men manifested by wrath from heaven. 

The points of Doctrine that were handled were three: 1. All the 
sons of Adam in themselves considered are ungodly and unjust. All 
men as they came from Adam are unjust: Ephes. 2: 12: haters of 
God : Tit. 3: 3. 

Use. Hence we may learn what we may expect at the hands of all 
natural men, when we come to deal with them. Natural men are unjust 
men and unrighteous men. Judas was an unrighteous man, and bore 
the bag, and then served himself. There is never a natural man but 
will be thieving if he can do it secretly. 



430 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



2dly. This shows that wicked men deceive themselves, and God's 
people are deceived by them, but though no man know them to be 
unjust, yet God knows them to be unjust. 

3dly. This is to exhort all natural men not to quiet themselves in 
this condition, not for a moment : for as death leaves them, so will God 
find them at the Judgment. 

A Second Doctrine : that there be stirrings of truth in the hearts of 
all men naturally, and carnal men labor to beat them down. Two 
things to be considered : What this truth is, and how it [is] stirring. 
This truth is, those relics that are left in the mind of man from Adam, 
that light that discovereth right and wrong in many things, and is that 
conscience which is in man. Rom. 2: 14. 

2dly, this truth left in the heart of man is but little and weak of 
itself: corruption in the heart hath eaten it out. Acts 17: 27. 

2. How this truth is stirring in men's bosoms, which they labor to 
beat down. 

Use. Wonder therefore at the goodness of God to man fallen, that 
he hath not left him wholly in darkness, without any means to help 
him, but hath left him some recoilings of heart to recover him. So 
long as a prince leaves his ambassador in another country, it is a sign 
he maintains peace with them, but if he call him home, they must 
expect war. So if God leaves Us to ourselves, so that we put out this 
spark of light left in our bosom, let us take heed God does not proceed 
against us. It was the course God took with the old world, because 
they always resisted his dictates : therefore, that his spirit should not 
always strive with them. 

Use of Instruction : that with a watchful fear, you give attendance to 
the truth of God, yea, to the least whispering of conscience. Little do 
you think that when you go away convinced in your conscience that 
these are duties to be attended — oh, take heed, these are counsels of 
God from heaven, and you must give attendance to whispering : there- 
fore, when God's acting, and conscience is acting, do you act also. 
When David's heart smote him, he took it as from God. So do you. 
Though these truths cannot bring a man to his journey's end, yet they 
will help him onward on his way. 

When the truth is stirring, what do they ? They hold it down * in 
unrighteousness. For explanation of some things: Any breach of the 
law of God is meant by unrighteousness. 2dly, to hold down the truth 
is as much as to lay violent hands upon truth and upon conscience, and 



*Here, as elsewhere, Hooker substitutes "they hold [it] down," for "they hold [it]" (in un- 
righteousness) of the authorized version. The Genevan, or rather Beza " Englished by L. Tom- 
son" — the version most used by the Puritans — has "which -withhold the truth in unrighteous- 
ness." Hooker's rendering of the original text {K.are\6vTwv) is the same to which preference is 
given in the new revision — " who hold dow?i the truth," etc. 



APPENDIX IV. 



431 



to say, accuse and convince no more ; they do arrest the truth, and 
imprison the truth ; but how ? It is in unrighteousness : that is, by the 
authority (?) of the sinfull distemper in the soul that any person does 
rise up and oppose any truth of God. 

Doctri7ie the -$d. Carnal men suppress the power of the truth, that 
it may not prevail with them, and press them to holy duties : that no 
light may come in to hinder them in their way. They stifle conscience : 
when Lot spake mildly, they were hot against him: Gen. 19: "And 
these proud men," Jer. 43: 2 : when truth does not please them, "thou 
liest." Men that live in continual opposition against God, God leaves 
them that they see neither right nor reason, as a man that hath lost all his 
eyes. How men suppress the truth, and lock the truth close prisoner. 
A carnal man and unrighteous heart, because he cannot be quiet in his 
sin, he is not willing to see, because he is not willing to do that which 
will cross (?) his distemper : he keeps himself off from the truth and 
saith, what need a man trouble himself with these nissityes (niceties): he 
winketh with his eyes, and sayeth to the prophet, see not, but speak 
unto us smooth things. A carnal heart acts like a jailor, confines the 
conscience to the chain — and he shall have the liberty of that, but no 
more ; sayeth, thus far shalt thou go, but no farther : like [one with] 
blear eyes, that can endure some light, but that the sun should shine 
full in his face, he cannot endure : content to have it taught that a man 
should not steal— by the highways ; but that a man must not cozen in 
secret, he cannot endure ; or such as can bear to have rotten and cor- 
rupt speeches reproved, but to forbid chambering and wantonness he 
will not bear. 

zdly. Haply, a man is not able to avoid the light : then a carnal mind 
will labor to dull and take off the edge of truth and power of that he 
knows ; he will put reproofs upon the good ways of God, flinging filth 
and shame upon the good word of God, that so it may not have welcome 
and his heart not be taken to come under the power of the truth ; and 
also say, your Church covenant is but a conceit taken up of some, — and 
that baptism should be dispensed but to children of the Church, they 
say it is but a conceit, to please some in a singular way ; and so dis- 
courage from the truth as impossible ever to have comfort ; Rom. 1: 28, 
2 Thes. 2 : 10 : they had the truth, but did not love it. But our Saviour 
sayeth, Blessed is the man that is not offended at me. 

$dly. If the evidence of truth be so clear that it dasheth all, and so 
compels a man to come in, — then a carnal heart frameth new arguments 
to overbear the power of the truth. Balaam would fain have had 
allowance from God, and had a house full of gold ; and when he cannot 
get allowance, then he fell to quarreling and caviling. 

A carnal heart takes great contentment that he can find a shift. 

When a man is troubled at the evidence of truth, he may go far and 



432 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



near to get some help, and if he can get any kind of shift, he sits down 
fully satisfied, — as Pharaoh sends for the magicians, not that he*might 
know the mind of God to do it, but that he might have some plea to 
attend [....] his way. 

\thly. If a man is not able to corrupt the truth, then he will proceed 
to open opposition of it : when they cannot tell how to write the bond 
of truth, then they will break it. I Sam. 8 : 19 ; we will have a king. 
Hence comes this speech : All the world shall not persuade me : not 
their arguments are strong, but they are resolved. 

$thly. They have so dabed* conscience, Eph. 4 : 18, that they are 
past feeling : conscience says nothing, and they fear nothing. 1 Timo. 
4:2; conscience is seared with a hot iron : now they will deny a man 
the liberty of the prison : the man is growing sermon-proof and prison- 
proof : they master their conscience, — and by this time the sinner is 
like a living devil. What is the reason of this ? What hath the truth 
done, that they are so troubled ? Because a corrupt heart looks at his 
lusts as his chief good, as his God, — as Micah, Judg. 18 : 24 ; that is the 
cause why they are so violent against the truth ; they will rather destroy 
than their lusts, 1 Sam. 4 : 8, 9 ; when they see the truth would make 
them servants to the truth against their lusts, as they count it, they 
will not yield to these .... commandments. Herod's lusts were 
nearer to him than God. So the scribes and the pharisees dealt with 
the Son : slay him, that the kingdom may be ours. A man cannot live 
in his kingdom of pride if truth be not beaten down. 

idly. So they are desirous to have sweet contentment wi.th their 
sins, therefore they will oppose the truth that will raise claims of con- 
science and [so that] they shall not have quiet in their sins. It is no 
marvel they so trouble truth that so troubleth themselves. Rev. 11 : 10 ; 
when the two witnesses were slain then the world made merry that they 
were dead that tormented them : every wicked man. is the malefactor 
whom truth witnesseth against. 

Obs. But how can they imprison the truth that shall triumph forever ? 
There is a directing power in the truth, which may be dashed by them ; 
but there is a condemning power in the truth that shall stand forever ! 

Use ; of Instruction : that this follows as a collection undeniable, 
that all opposers of the truth are ever under the power of some corrup- 
tion if they persevere in opposing it : he imprisons the truth out of 
pride : if it be a godly man that opposeth the truth for a pang, he is 
pestered with some corruption, though not under the power of it. 
John 3 : 20, Every man that evil doeth, hateth the light. Jonah was in 
a pang of [. . . .] for a time. If a man persevere in opposing the truth, 
it argues he is under the power of corruption. Achan loved the wedge, 



A reference to Ezek. 13 : 10-12 ? " daubed it with untempered mortar," &c. 



APPENDIX IV. 



433 



and Balaam the wages of iniquity, and therefore went again and again 
to cross the Lord : the Pharisees out of their own conceit compassed 
sea and land in order that they might rejoice in their flesh in winning 
any one to be their follo.wer. Matt. 7:6; who are that trample upon the 
pearl, but hogs and dogs ? The one will trample upon it and grunt, — 
but will do nothing; the dog will snarl at it: follow them, and you 
shall ever find they have their sty and kennel, some base lust to 
lodge in. 

Use : of Examination and Trial ; that we may here discover whether 
a heart be carnal or spiritual, see how the heart stands to the truth and 
carries (?) to the truth. John 8 : 32 ; free from your corruptions and 
distempers : but if he be a professed opposer of the truth, he is a man 
that never had the truth of God in his heart. An oppresser of the truth 
has no gracious work of truth, in sincerity. 

This Doctrine condemns three sorts of men : [1st,] politic professors ; 
2d, wrangling, and 3d, self-conceited professors. The politic is a secret 
professor, that colors over their profession to serve their own turns ; 
whose policy cuts the throat of sincerity : he serves the times ; he 
admits (?) that a man cannot carry himself free from the entanglements 
of the times. They are formalist professors : he has the truth as a 
child has a bird in a string ; pulls him to him, and lets him go, as he 
will. There be birds that we call weatherwise, that will go or come as 
the season serves : so these professors will have so much truth as will 
serve their turn, and that which will not they lay by. There be some 
that be for any place : England, Spain, France, or Anabaptists, the 
smells, the climate of the country, and knows what ship will carry him 
to his haven.* Esther, 8: [17,] many turned Jews. 

2. Your wrangling professor ; that professeth himself marvellously 
zealous, yet [is] one of the cunningest enemies that the truth has : he 
kisseth Christ, and betrays truth: and all this he does for his zeal, 
and for God and the truth and the rule is all he seeks, and he will do 
anything for it ; the truth he cannot see. Will you have the scope of 
this professor ? He will not be convinced of the truth, that he may 
not do the thing he is convinced of : for a man to confess a sin and yet 
to stand in the commission of it, will not stand with morality : but this 
bears a face [sic] when a man inquires a way : but he is resolved not to 
embrace the truth, that so [he] may not do it. Oh, let the counsel of 
the wicked be far from me, Jerem. 42 : 20, they come to inquire, when 
they were resolved [not to do]; Matt. 21 : 25-27, they were put to a 
strait, and came off with a lie. When a man is convinced, and will not 
come off, unless he be in a distemper, he is a wrangler. 

3. The self -conceited ': We have an example of them in Matt. 14: 4, 



*So, in the notes — here, manifestly, very imperfect. 

55 



434 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



5, 6: they lord it over the law, and think that their wit has the common- 
wealth in their heads, and that all men's apprehensions must fall in 
with their judgments : I Timo. 6 : 3, 4 ; if any man thinks otherwise, 
he is diseased in the humour of questions \sic\ he comes not up to the 
terms of the truth. In an unsound body, when the humour grows all to 
one place, he is sick of a disease. All his zeal for the truth is to set 
up himself. 

Use : of Consolation, and of singular comfort to all that are willing to 
inquire after the truth and nothing but the truth. This is an evidence 
of a sincere heart : If you are of the truth, then are you my disciples. 
' I have no greater joy than [to hear] that my children walk in the 
truth' [3 John, 4] : and if he had joy in beholding, what a treasure of 
joy is it to have the enjoyment of it. 1 John, 3 : 8, [3 John, 12,] 
'Demetrius hath a good report of all men and of the truth itself.' 
When truth shall witness before the Lord in any one's behalf and say, 
though this poor sinful child, or servant, or wife, or master, has been 
stubborn, froward, or proud in their places, yet I have found his heart 
upright towards Thee, — this will be your comfort at the last day. 

Use : Here we may see the right and never failing way of God, how 
the heart may be brought to embrace the truth. Labor to quit your 
hearts of unrighteousness, for it is at the quarrel of unrighteousness 
that all suits are \sic\ Do as Peter exhorts, 1 Pet. 2: 12, lay 
aside all malice and guile, and do as Paul did, that which he counted 
gain he counted loss for Christ, parties mad in persecuting ; but that 
which he counted gain, he threw them all away as dog's meat, for Christ. 
If you have a humour in yourself you must cleanse your stomach. 
When Ephraim renounceth his idols, then he shall be accepted." 



APPENDIX V. 

(see page 145.) 
THOMAS HOOKER'S PUBLISHED WORKS. 

FURNISHED BY DR. J. H. TRUMBULL. 

? [The Poor Dov ting Christia?i drawne vnto Christ. 

8° London : Printed in the year 1629.] 

Title from Henry Stevens — from whom Sabin copied it. 

This book does not appear in the Registers of the Stationers' Com- 
pany until 1637, whom (May 6th) "The poore doubting Christian drawn 
to Christ, &c. vpon John the 6th, the 45th [verse], by Master Hooker" 
was entered for copyright to Mr. [R.] Dawlman and Luke Fawne {Reg- 
isters, iv. 383.) Two weeks earlier, " certain Sermons vpon John the 
6th, verse the 45th, by T. H." had been entered to Andrew Crooke 
{ibid. 381) — which may have been another edition of the same work. 

Its sixth edition was printed in 1641 : — 

"The Poore Doubting Christian drawn to Christ. Wherein the main 
Lets and Hindrances which keep men from coming to Christ are dis- 
covered. With especiall Helps to recover God's favor. The Sixth 
Edition." Londo7i : I. Raworth for Luke Fawne. pp. (2), 163. 12 . 

After the 6th, I can trace, in the seventeeth century, only three edi- 
tions [1652 {Dr. Williams's Libr. Cat.)', 1659, y. M acock, for Luke 
Fawne, 12 , and 1667, 16 (Am. Antiq. Soc. Catalogue)], before "The 
Twelfth Edition," 12 1700. 

The first American edition, with an " Abstract of the author's Life," 
by the Rev. Thomas Prince, was printed in Boston (for D. Henchman) 
1743 (12 pp. 14, 144). — This edition, with the Life, and an Introduction 
by Rev. Dr. Edward W. Hooker, was reprinted, Hartford, 1845 (16 
pp. 165, 1). 

Sabin (Dictionary, no. 32847) says : " This, the earliest and most 
popular of Hooker's works, first appeared in a collection of sermons 
entitled ' The Saints' Cordial,' attributed to Sibbs." I have not seen 
this collection, nor can I find any mention of the edition of 1629 except 
in H. Stevens's catalogue (and in Sabin) as before noted. • 



436 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 

The Sovles Preparation for Christ. Or, A Treatise of Contrition. 
Wherein is discovered How God breaks the heart and wounds the 
Soule, in the conversion of a Sinner to Himselfe. pp. (8), 258. 

4 London, R. Dawlman, 1632. 

[2d edition ?] 4 London, 1635. 

[3d edition ?] sm. 12 Printed {for the use and benefit of the 

English Churches) in the Netherlands. 1638. 

4th Edition. 4 London : Assignes, of T. P. 

for A. Crooke. 1638. 

6th Edition. 12 Lond., M. F. for R. Dawlman. 1643. 

7th Edition. 12 Lond., J. G. for R. Dawlman. 1658. 

This work was entered to R. Dawlman, 29 Oct., 163 1, as " The Soules 
Preparation for Christ, out of Acts 2, 37, and Luke 15, by F. H." — as 
the printed Register (iv. 263) has it, by a clerical error for T. H. One 
third of the copyright was assigned, 14 Oct., 1634, to R. Allott, and by 
Allott's widow, 1 July, 1637, to Legatt and Andrew Crooke. 

The Eqvall Wayes of God: Tending to the Rectifying of the 
Crooked Wayes of Man. The Passages whereof are briefly and clearly 
drawne from the sacred Scriptures. By T. H. pp. (8), 40. 

4° London; for John Clarke, 1632. 

Entered to J. Clarke, 6 Dec, 1631 {Registers, iv. 267). The prefatory 
address, To the Christian Reader, is signed T. H. — showing that the 
publication was authorized by the author. 

[An Exposition of the Lord's Prayer. By T. H. 1638.] 

Entered, as above, to Mr. [R.] Dawlman, 5 Sept. 1637 {Stat. Registers, 
iv. 392). It is advertised, as published, in a list of Mr. Hooker's books, 
prefixed to (the 4th edition of) " The Soules Preparation," &c, 1638. 
The Bodleian Catalogue has : Heaven's Treasury opened, in a faithfull 
Exposition of the Lord's Prayer, 8° Lond. 1645 : an d Sabin has that 
title and date nearly (no. 32839) with "fruitful" in place of "faithfull," 
and adding : " with a Treatise on the Principles of Religion ; " but 
marking the size as 4to. The Bodleian has, as a separate title : " An 
Exposition of the Principles of Religion," 8° 1645, — in the list of Hook- 
er's works. 

The Sovles Hwniliation. 4 London, for A. Crooke, 1637. Entered 
(as, by T. H.) Feb. 28, 1636-7, to A. Crooke, by whom one half the 
copyright was assigned to P. Nevill, 13 March, 1637-8 {Registers, iv. 374, 
412). The licenser's imprimatur is dated Oct. 10 and Dec. 6, 1637. 
The Second Edition, 4 /. L. for A. Crooke. 1638. 

The Third Edition. 4 T. Cotes for A. Crooke} /- 

and P. Nevill. S 
Another. " 8° Amsterda?n,for T. L. . . . near the English Church, 
{pp. 302) 1638. 



APPENDIX V. 



437 



The Soules Implantation. A Treatise containing, The Broken 
Heart, on Esay $7- l S- Tne Preparation of the Heart, on Luke I. 17. 
The Soules Ingrafting into Christ, on Mai. 3. 1. Spirituall Love and 
Joy, on Gal. 5. 22. By T. H. 4° R. Young, sold by F. Clifton, 1637. 

pp. (2), 266. 

Entered 22 Apr. 1637, to Young and Clifton, {Registers, iv. 382.) 
Another, much improved edition, under the title — 

The Soules Implantation into the Naturall Olive. By T. H. 
Carefully corrected, and much enlarged. With a Table of the Contents 
prefixed. 4 R. Young, sold by F. Clifton, 1640. 

pp. (6), 320. 

The Sermon on Spiritual Joy, on Habak. 3. 17, 18, is added in this 
edition, and the preceding Sermon, on Spiritual Love, was printed from 
larger and more accurate notes. 

The Sovles Ingrafting into Christ. By T. H. 4 J. H [aviland~\ 
pp. (2), 30. for A. Crooke, 1637. 

The text is Mai. 3. 1. It is one of three " Sermons . . by T. H." 
entered to Crooke, 22 July, 1637 {Registers, iv. 390). Another edition of 
it makes part of "The Soules Implantation" 1637. See the next pre- 
ceding title. 

The Sovles Effectual! Calling to Christ. By T. H. 4 J. H[avi- 
land] for A. Crooke, 1637. pp. (2), 33-668. 

Entered to A. Crooke, 21 Apr. 1637, as "certain Sermons upon John 
the 6th, verse the 45th, by T. H." {Register, iv. 381.) Usually bound 
with " The Sovles Ingrafting," with which its paging is continuous ; but 
also published separately (though without change of paging,) with a 
second title prefixed, — 

The Sovles Vocation or Effectual Calling to Christ. By T. H. 

With a Table of Contents (11 leaves), and in imprint, the date 1638. 

[The Soules Possession of Christ : upon Romans 13: 4, Acts 16 : 31, 
Psal. 51 : 16, John 7 : 37, 2 Kings 2 : 12, 1 Peter 5 : 5, Zeph. 2:3. By 
T. H.] 8° 1638. 

So entered to [R.] Dawlman, 13 Nov. 1637. The Bodleian Catalogue 
has : The Soules Possession of Christ : whereunto is annexed a Funeral 
Sermon on 2 Kings ii. 12. 8° Lond. 1638. "-Spirituall Munition: a 
funeral Sermon, on 2 Kings ii. 12. By T. H. 8° Lond. 1638" {Bodl. 
Cat.) appears to have been also published separately. 

The Sovles Exaltation. A Treatise containing The Soules Virion 
with Christ, on 1 Cor. 6. 17. The Soules Benefit from Vnion with 
Christ, on 1 Cor. 1. 30. The Soules Justification, on 2 Cor. 5. 21. By 
T. H. pp. {16), 311. 

4 J. Haviland, for Andr. Crooke, 1638. • 



438 THE FIRST, CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 

4' 

8 April, 1637, [12] " Sermons . . by T. H." were entered to Andrew 
Crooke, — the text of each being named (Registers, iv. 380). These ser- 
mons were made up into three volumes, under the titles, "The Soules 
Exaltation " (3), " Four Treatises," etc. (3), and " The Vnbeleevers Pre- 
paring for Christ" (5) — all published in 1638. 

The Vnbeleevers Preparing for Christ. Luke 1. 17. By T. H. pp. 
(4), 204, (4) ; 119, (4). 4 T Cotes for Andr. Crooke, 1638. 

Six sermons. The first five selected from the " Sermons by T. H." 
entered to A. Crooke, 8 April, 1637; the last (on John 6. 44), one of 
" certain sermons . . by T. H.," entered to the same publisher, 22 July, 
1637 {Registers, iv. 380, 390.) 

Four godly and learned Treatises j viz. : The Carnall Hypocrite. 
The Churches Deliverances. The Deceitfulness of Sinne. The Bene- 
fit of Afflictions. By T. H. 12 A. Crooke, 1638. 

(Prince Library and Bodleian Catalogues.) Probably four of the (12) 
Sermons by T. H. entered to Crooke, 8 April, 1637. Among "several 
Treatises by this Author" advertised by Cooke, 1638, are "Sermons on 
Judges 10. 23 ; on Psalms 119. 29 ; on Proverbs 1. 28, 29 ; and on 2 Tim. 
3. 5." These sermons are included in the collection entered 8 April, 
except the third, which is one of four entered to the same publisher, 
22 July, 1837. (Crooke assigned half the copyright of these "Four 
Treatises" to Wra. Wethered, 1 Sept. 1638.) 

?[The Garments of Salvation first putt off by the Fall of our first 
Parents. Secondly, putt on again by the Grace of the Gospel. By T. H. 

1639?] 
Entered, 6 May, 1639, to R. Young and Fulke Clifton (Registers, iv. 
465.) Mr. Arber queries, "? by Thomas Hooker." Certainly intended 
to pass for his. I have not been able to find a copy of it. 

The Christians Two Chief e Lessons, Viz. Selfe-Deniall, and Selfe- 
Tryall. As also, The Priviledge of Adoption and Triall thereof. In 
three Treatises on the Texts following : Viz. Matt. 16. 24. 2 Cor. 13. 5. 
Iohn I. 12, 13. By T. H. 

pp. (24), 303. 4° T. B. for P. Stephens and C. Meredith, 1640. 

An " Epistle Dedicatory," to " the Honourable and truly Religious 
Lady, the Lady Anne Wake," is subscribed, Z. S. [Rev. Zechariah 
Symmes of Charlestown ?] who "had taken some paines in the perusall 
and transcribing " the copy " after it came into the Printers hands," 
and " one that was inwardly acquainted with the Authour [Thomas 
Shepard ?] hath laboured with me in this taske." 



APPENDIX V. 



439 



" A Treatise or certaine Sermons ' of Selfe Deny all ' upon Matthew 
16. 24 and 25 verses, by T. H." was entered 15 Dec. 1638, to Stevens 
and Meredith {Registers iv. 448). The completed work, with the title 
as above, was entered to the same partners, 15 Oct. 1639 (id. 483). 

{The Patterne of Perfection exhibited in God's Image on Adam and 
God's Covenant with him, on Genesis 1. 26. Whereunto is added, An 
Exhortacion to redeeme tyme for recovering our losses in the premises 
on Ephesians, 5. 16. Also certaine Queries touching a true and sound 
Christian, by T. H.] 

This title was entered to Mr. [R.] Young and Fulke Clifton, 19 Feb. 
1638-9 {Registers, iv. 455). Published (in a second edition ?) 1640, 8° 
{Bodl. Cat.) 

The Danger of Desertion : or A Farwell Sermon of Mr. Thomas 
Hooker, Somtimes Minister of God's Word at Chainsford in Essex ; 
but now of Xew England. Preached immediately before his departure 
out of old England. — Together with Ten Particular rules to be prac- 
tised every day by converted Christians, pp. (4), 29. 

4 G. M.for Geo. Edwards, 1641. 

Text, Jerem. 14. 9. A Second edition was printed the same year 
(Prince Libr. Cat.) A MS. note by the Rev. T. Prince attributes the 
" Ten Rules " to the Rev. E. Reyner. 

The Faithfitl Covenanter. A Sermon preached at the Lecture in Ded- 
ham in Essex. By that excellent servant of Iesus Christ, in the work 
of the Gospel, Mr. Tho. Hooker, late of Chelmsford ; now in New- 
England. Very usefull in these times of Covenanting with God. Psal. 
78. vers. 9, [10, 36, 37 : 8 lines], pp. (2), 43. 

4° Christopher Meredith, 1644. 

Text from Deut. 29. 24, 25. Printed from the notes of some hearer 
— and without the author's knowledge — as " very useful in these times " 
of subscribing the " Solemn League and Covenant." 

? [An Exposition of the Principles of Religion. 8° 1645.] 

Title from the Bodleian Catalogue. I have not seen it. 

The Saints Gttide, in three Treatises on Gen. vi. 13, [3,] Rom. i. 18, 
and Ps. i. 3. 8° Lond. 1645. 

Bodl. Catalogue. " Three Sermons upon these Texts (vizt.) Romans 
1. 18, Genesis 6. 3, Psalms 1. 3, by T. H." were entered to John Stafford, 
10 Aug. 1638 {Stat. Reg. iv. 428) : but I can trace no earlier edition than 
that of 1645. 



440 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



?[The Immortality of the Soule. The Excellencie of Christ Jesus, 
treated on. Wherein the faithfull people of God may find comfort for 
their Souls. By T. H. Published according to Order, pp. (2), 21. 

4° 1646.] 

Title from Sabin's Dictionary, (no. 32841) — where it is attributed to 
Hooker. 

l\Heatitonaparnumenos : or a Treatise of Self-Deny all. Intended 
for the Pulpit; but now committed to the Presse for the Publike Bene- 
fit. By Thomas Hooker. London, Wilson for Rich. Royston, 164.6. 

Title from Sabin (no. 32840) who evidently had not seen the book, for 
he does not give the size or number of pages. I am confident this title 
is not (our) Thomas Hooker's : but the book may be a bookseller's 
make-up from " The Christians Two Chief Lessons," etc. published in 
1640. 

POSTHUMOUS. 

A Survey of the Summe of Church Discipline. Wherein, The 
Way of the Churches of New-England is warranted out of the Word, 
etc. ... By Tho. Hooker, late Pastor of the Church at Hartford upon 
Connecticott in N. England, pp. (36) ; Part I. pp. 139, (1 blk.), 185- 
296; Part II. pp. 90; Part III. pp. 46 ; Part IV. pp. 59. 

4 A. M. for John Bellamy, 1648. 

The author's preface (18 pp.) is followed by an Epistle to the Reader 
(4 pp.) subscribed by Edward Hopkins and William Goodwin, Hartford, 
28 Oct. 1647 : a Poem "in obitum viri Doctissimi Thomas Hookeri," by 
Samuel Stone ; others by John Cotton and E. Rogers : and a further 
commendation to the reader by Thomas Goodwin, April 17, 1648. 

This work, it appears, was "finished, and sent near two years " earlier, 
to be printed ; but the copy " was then buried in the rude waves of the 
vast Ocean, with many precious Saints, in their passage hither." Mr. 
Hooker reluctantly consented to prepare another copy for the press, 
but " before the full transcribing, he was translated from us to be ever 
with the Lord." 

To some copies of the work, John Cotton's " The Way of Congrega- 
tional Churches cleared," was appended, and a general title, including 
both works, prefixed to the volume. Mr. Cotton's treatise continues 
the answers to Rutherford, begun by Mr. Hooker in Part I. Chap. 10, 
of the Survey. That chapter ends on p. 139, the next page is blank, 
and Chapter 11 begins on the next page following, numbered 185, with 
a new signature. It may have been the intention of the editors to 
incorporate Mr. Cotton's work with Hooker's, in this division of the 
Survey, — or the former may have been substituted for Hooker's unfin- 
ished notes. 



APPENDIX V. 



441 



The Covenant of Grace opened : wherein These particulars are han- 
dled ; viz. 1. What the Covenant of Grace is, 2. What the Seales of 
the Covenant are, 3. Who are the Parties and Subjects fit to receive 
these Seales. From all which Particulars Infants Baptisme is fully 
proved and vindicated. Being severall Sermons preached at Hartford 
in New-England. By that Reverend and faithfull Minister of the Gos- 
pel, Mr. Thomas Hooker, pp. (2), 85. 4 G. Dawson, 1649. 

The Saints Dignitie and Dutie. Together with The Danger of 
Ignorance and Hardnesse. Delivered in severall Sermons. By that 
Reverend Divine Mr. Thomas Hooker, Late Preacher in New-England. 
pp. (12), 246. 4 G. D[awsoti], for Francis Eglesfield, 1651. 

Seven sermons: I. The Gift of Gifts : or, The End why Christ 
gave Himself {Titus 2. 14) : 2. The Blessed Inhabitant : or, The Ben- 
efit of Christ's being in Beleevers {Rom. 8. 10)'; 3. Grace Magnified : 
or the Priviledges of those that are under Grace {Rom. 6. 14) ; 4. Wis- 
domes Attenda7its : or The Voice of Christ to be obeyed {Prov. 8. 32) : 

5. The Activitie of Faith : or Abraham's Imitators {Rom. 4. 12): 

6. Culpable Ignorance : or the Danger of Ignorance under Meanes 
(Is. 27. 11) : 7. Willfull Hardnesse : or the Meanes of Grace Abused 
Prov. 29. 21). Each sermon has a full title-page, with imprint as in the 
general title : and probably each was sold separately — though the 
paging is continuous. 

The preface, signed T. S. [Thomas Shepard] shows that this volume 
was prepared for the press by Mr. Hooker's son-in-law. 

A Comment upon Chrisfs Last Prayer In the Seventeenth of 
John. Wherein is opened, The Vnion Beleevers have with God and 
Christ, and the Glorious Priviledges thereof .... By . . Mr. Thomas 
Hooker, etc. . . Printed from the Author's own Papers, . . . and attested 
to be t such ... by Thomas Goodwin and Philip Nye. pp. (26), 532. 

4 Peter Cole, 1656. 

Half-title, on p. 1 : " Mr. Hooker's Seventeenth Book made in New- 
England." A series of sermons on John 17. 20-26, preached, at the 
administration of the Lord's Supper, in the last years of Mr. Hooker's 
pastorate. 

The numbering of the volume as " Mr. Hooker's Seventeenth Book " 
has given some trouble to the bibliographers. Of a collection of seven- 
teen "books" — each comprising one or more sermons — sent to England 
for publication, the first eight were published together, by P. Cole, 1656 
[and 1657] under the general title of " The Application of Redemption," 
etc. ; and two others, the ninth and tenth, made a second volume under 
the same title. Six others (the eleventh to the sixteenth, inclusive) 
were announced by Cole,! in 1656,^5 "now printing, in two volumes " — 
56 



442 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



but I find no evidence that they were ever published. The seventeenth 
"and last," (as Cole announced it) was "A Comment upon Christ's 
Prayer," etc. 

The Application of Redemption. By the Effectual Work of the 
Word, and Spirit of Christ, for the bringing home of lost Sinners to 
God. [The first Eight Books.] . . By . . . Thomas Hooker, etc. 
Printed from the Authour's Papers, . . with . . an Epistle by Thomas 
Goodwin, and Philip Nye. pp. (46), 451. 8° 1657. 

The title and collation are from Sabin : but the Catalogue of the Red 
Cross (Dr. Williams's) Library mentions two editions of 1656, one in 
octavo, the other in quarto. 

The Application of Redemption, etc. The Ninth and Tenth 
Books . . Printed from the Author's Papers, Written with his own 
hand. And attested to be such, in an Epistle, By Thomas Goodwin 
and Philip Nye. pp. (22), 702, (30). 4 Peter Cole, 1657. 

The same. The Second Edition, pp. (22), 702, (30). 

4° Peter Cole, 1659. 

The prefatory epistle of Goodwin and Nye gives, in brief, the history 
of this work, and, incidentally, of many of the earlier editions of Hook- 
er's sermons. " Many parts and pieces of this Author, upon this 
argument, sermon-wise, preach'd by him here in England, . . . having 
been taken by an unskilful hand, which, upon his recess into those 
remoter parts of the World, was bold without his privity or consent to 
print and publish them, ... his genuine meaning was diverted . . . 
from the clear draft of his own notions and intentions. ... In these 
Treatises, thou hast his Heart from his own Hand, his own Thoughts 
drawn by his own Pencil," etc. He had preached more briefly of this 
subject, first, while a Fellow and Catechist at Emmanuel College, and 
again, many years after, more largely, at Chelmsford, — " the product of 
which was those books of Sermons that have gone under his name, — 
and last of all, now in New-England." 



APPENDIX VI. 

(see page 181.) 
poems on mr. stone. 

Edward Johnson's verses : In Wonder-working Providence. 

Thou well-smoth'd Stone Christs work-manship to be : 
In's Church new laid his weake ones to support, 

With's word of might his foes are foild by thee : 
Thou daily dost to godlinesse exhort. 

The Lordly Prelates people do deny 

Christs Kingly power Hosamia to proclaime, 

Mens mouths are stopt, but Stone poore dust doth try, 
Throughout his Churches none but Christ must raigne. 

Mourne not Oh Man, thy youth and learning's spent 
In desart Land : my Muse is bold to say, 

For glorious workes Christ his hath hither sent ; 
Like that great worke of Resurrection day. 



To my Reverend Dear Brother Mr. SAMUEL STONE, Teacher of the Church at Hartford. 

How well (dear Brother) art thou called Stone f 

As sometimes Christ did Simon Cephas own. 

A Stone for solid firmness fite to rear 

A part in Zions wall : and it upbear. 

Like Stone of Bohan, Bounds fit to describe 

Twixt Church and Church, as that twixt Tribe and Tribe. 

Like Samuel's Stone, erst Eben-Ezer hight : 

To tell the Lord hath helpt us with his might. 

Like Stone in Davids sling, the head to wound 

Of that huge Giant-Church, (so far renowned) 

Hight the Church-Catholicke, Oecumenical, 

Or, at the lowest compass, National ; 

Yet Poteck, Visible, and of such a fashion, 

As may or Rule a world or Rule a Nation. 



444 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 

Which though it be cry'd up unto the Skys, 

By Philistines and Isralites likewise ; 

Yet seems to me to be too neer a kin 

Unto the Kingdom of the Man of sin : 

In frame, and state, and constitution, 

Like to the first beast in the Revelation. 

Which was as large as Roman empire wide, 

And Ruled Rome, and all the world beside. 

Go on (good Brother) Gird thy Sword with might, 

Fight the Lord's Battels, Plead his Churches Right. 

To Brother Hooker, thou art next a kin, 

By Office-Right thou must his pledge Redeem. 

Take thou the double portion of his Spirit, 

Run on his Race, and then his Crown inherit. 

Now is the time when Church is millitant, 

Time hastneth fast when it shall be Tryumphant. 

JOHN COTTON. 

[The copy of Stone's Congregatio7ial Church a Catholike Visible Church in the Connecticut 
Historical Library, to which the foregoing verses of John Cotton's are prefaced, is a presentation 
copy by Mr. Stone to Rev. Michael Wigglesworth, and the inscription, in Mr. Stone's hand, 
records the date of the gift as Aug. 3, 1653.] 



A Threnodia upon our Churches second dark Eclipse, happening July 20, 1663, by DeaWs 
Interposition between us and that great light and Divine Plant, Mr. Samuel Stone, late of 
Hartford, in New England. 

Last Spring this Summer may be Autumn styl'd, 

Sad withering Fall our Beauties which despoyl'd 

Two choicest Plants, our Norton and our Stone, 

Your Justs threw down ; removed away are gone. 

One Year brought Stone and Norton to their Mother, 

In one Year April, July them did smother. 

Dame Cambridge Mother to this darling Son ; 

Emanuel, Northampf that heard this one, 

Essex our Bay, Hartford in Sable clad, 

Come bear your parts in this Threnodia sad. 

In losing One, Church many lost : Oh then 

Many for One, come be sad singing men. 

May Nature, Grace, and Art be found in one 

So higli as to be found in few or none? t 

In him these Three with full fraught hand contested 

With which by each he should be most invested. 

The Largest of the Three it was so great 

On him the Stone was held a Light compieat. 



APPENDIX VI. 



445 



A Stone more than the Ebenezer fam'd ; 

Stone splendent Diamond, right Orient nam'd ; 

A Cordial Stone, that often cheared hearts 

With pleasant Wit, with Gospel rich imparts : 

Whet-Stone, that Edgefi'd th' obtrusest Mind ; 

Load-Stone, that drew the Iron Heart unkind ; 

A Ponderous Stone, that would the bottom sound 

Of Scripture-depths, and bring out Ar can's found ; 

A Sto7ie for Kingly David's use so fit, 

As would not fail GoliaJi's Front to hit : 

A Stone, an Antidote, that break the course 

Of Gangrene Error by Convincing force ; 

A Stone Acute, fit to divide and square ; 

A Squared Stone, became Christ's Building rare ; 

A Peter's Living lively Stone (so Rear'd) 

As 'live was Hartford f s life ; dead death is fear'd. 

In Hartford old, Stone first drew Infant-breath, 

In New effus'd his last : O there beneath 

His Corps are laid, near to his darling Brother, 

Of whom dead oft he sigh'd Not such Another. 

Heaven is the more desirable (said he) 

For Hooker, Shepard, and Hay ties Company. 

E. B [ULKLEY ?].- 



MR. STONE'S WILL 

AND 

INVENTORY OF HIS ESTATE. 

The last Will and Testament of the Reverend M r Sa?nu Stone, late 
teacher of the Church of X at Hartford, who deceased July 20, 1663. 

Inasmuch as all men on earth are mortall, and the time of dying w lh 
the maner thereof is only forenowne and predetermined by the Majestie 
on high, and that it is a duty incumbent on all so farr forth to have their 
house set in order, as considerately to determine and dispose of all 
their outward estate, consisting in Heredetaments, Lands, Chattells, 
goods of what kind soever, w th all and either there appurtenaunces, to 
severall persons, that Righteousness and peace w th love might be mayn- 
tained for the future, and whereas at this present : That I Samuel Stone, 
of Hartford, vpon Conecticut, am by a gracious visitation and warneing 
from the Lord invited and called to hasten this present duty and ser- 
uice for ends premised, Being through the gentle and tender dealeing 
of the Lord in full and perfect memorie, make and appoint this as my 
last Will and Testament as followes : 



446 THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 

Imp. : It is my will that M rs . Elizabeth Stone, my loving wife, shall 
be my true and sole executrix of this my last Will and Testament, and 
that w th out any intanglem 1 or snare : the legacies given to herself 
being firstly possessed, all and every of them as they follow, and the 
after legacies to be made good out of y c remayneing estate if sufficient, 
otherwise a distribution according to that proportion, yet if there happen 
any overpluss to be wholly and solely at the disspose of my sayd wife. 
Allso I give unto my sayd wife (during the terme of her life) half my 
houseing and lands w th in the liberties of Hartford, and to have the free 
dispose of the value of the sayd halfe of my lands at the time of her 
death, by legacy or otherwise. Allso farther it is my will and I doe 
freely give unto my wife all the household stuff that I had w th her when 
I marryd her, to be at her free and full dispose as shee shall see cause, 
other gifts which are more casuall, appeare in the legacies following : 

Itt : Aliso, as my last Will and Testament, and in token of my far- 
therly loue and care, I doe freely giue and bequeath unto my son 
Samuel Stone at the time of my deceasse the other halfe of my house- 
ing and lands w th in the liberties of Hartford afoarsayed and the other 
halfe of the houseing at the time of the death of my sayd wife, freely 
w th out any valuable consideration to be in anywise required, as allso 
the other halfe of y e Land, but upon a valuable consideration as before 
premised in the Legacy given to my deare and louing wife. Allso 
farther I doe freely giue unto my sayd sonne all my Bookes excepting 
such as are otherwise disposed of in this my sayd last Will and Testa- 
ment : But, provided my sonne Samuell departe this life before he is 
marryed, that then the whole of this my present legacy remayneing 
shall returne to and be wholly at y e disspose of my sayd louing wife. 

Itt: Allso unto my daughter Elizabeth, I doe giue and order to be 
payd the full sume of one hundred pounds in household goods, chattells 
and other countrey pay, what my louing wife can best part w lh all, or in 
two or three acres of Land at price currant before the sayd Land be 
diuided betwixt my louing wife and sonne as afoarsaid, and this sayd 
legacy to be performed and made good w th in two years after the mar- 
riage of my sayd daughter Elizabeth, provided that if my sayd daughter 
shall match or dispose of herself in marriage either w th out or crosse to 
the minde of her dear mother my louing wife afoarsayd, and the mind 
and consent of my louing ouerseers hereinafter mentioned, then this 
my last will concerning her to stand voyd, and she gladly to accept of 
such a summe and quantity of portion as her said mother shall freely 
dispose to her or : And in case my said Daughter shall dye and depart 
this world before shee receiue her sayd portion, the whole thereof shall 
fully returne and belong vnto my sayd wife at her dispose. 

Itt : Allso (as a token of my fatherly love and respect) I doe giue unto 
my three daughters, Rebeccah, Mary and Sarah, forty shillings, each of 



APPENDIX VI. 



447 



them to be payd them by my dear wife in household stuffe, as it shall 
be prized in Inventory. And farther whereas the Honored Court of 
this Colony were pleased to giue or grante a farme unto me, Acknowl- 
edging there iavoure therein and requesting them to assigne the same 
unto my sonn and deare wife in some conuenient place, where they 
may receive benefitt by it, to whom I doe freely give the same indiffer- 
entlv both for the present benefitt and future disspose : 

And farther itt is my desire that such of my manuscripts as shall be 
judged fitt for to be printed, my Reverend Friend, M r John Higginson 
pastor of the church of X 1 at Salem may haue the peruseall of them, 
and fit them for the press, especially my catechisme. 

And that my louing wife may have some direct refuge for aduise and 
helpfullness in all cases of difficulty in and about all or any of the prem- 
ises my great desire is that my Brethren and friends M r Mathew Allyn, 
Broth. W m Wads worth, M r John Allyn and my sonn Joseph Fitch 
would affoarde their best assistance, whome of this my last will and testa- 
ment I doe constitute as my most desired overseers, nothing doubting 
of their readiness herein, and unto whome w !h my loveing wife I doe 
leave the disposal of my sonne Samuel and daughter Elizabeth to be 
aduised and counselled in the feare of the Lord. 

Subscribed by me 

SAMUEL STONE. 
In the presence and witnesse of 
Bray Rosseter. 

An Inventory of the goods and chattells of M 1 ' Sam 
Reverend teacher of the Church of Christ at Hartford, who 
this life July the 20 th , 1663. 



11 Stone the 


late 


1, who 


departed 


£ 


s. 


dd. 


18 


13 


00 


01 


04 


00 


01 


°5 


06 


00 


09 


00 



Imprimis. In his purss and apparell, 

In the Hall. In a table, joynt stooles and chairs, 

In a Trammell Andirons Tongs and Bellowes, 

In a cuboard, 

In a feather bed, Pillowes, Bowlsters, rug, Blanckets, 

curtains, strawbed. 09 15 00 

In one flock bed, Bowlster, rug, Blanket, a great bed- 
stead, a Trucle b., . 03 10 00 

In y Parlo . In a table forme, carpett, joynt stooles, 

chayres, 03 16 00 

In a chest of drawers, a green cupboard, cloth, Glass 
case, 

In a payer of Scales, weights, hower glass, andirons, 

In two glass cases, Hamer, gimlet, cushion, 

In y Closet. In plate in seuerall peices, 



02 


18 


OO 


00 


13 


00 


00 


12 


06 


06 


16 


00 



448 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



In a flagon, pinte pot, spoones, cutting knife, 

In a lanthoren, Line, Trenchers, six saucers, 

In a halfe Bushell, glass case, 

In Bees wax and Honey and earthen ware, 

In a Baskett, wooden ware, Butter, candles, china ware, 

In the Kitchen. In Pewter 4o lb and pewter Bason, 

candlesticks, 
In three Brasse Candlesticks, three Chamber potts, 
In five porrengers, small Brasse Candlesticks, 
In tin ware, earthen ware, three brass skilletts, 
In Iron Potts, Pot Hooks, In wooden ware, 
In pailes, siues, Tubbs, meal Trough, Baskett, 
In a Table, Jack Spitts, Gridiron, frying pan, 
In a Mortar pestle, Trammells a piece of Iron, Tonges, oo 
In a Brass Copper, Kettles, cheespresse, Bake pan, 
In a churne, cupboard, a Barrell of Beif Tallow, 
In two Tubbs, 
In the Celler. In Cheese, Cyder, Aples, Table, 

Wooden ware, 
In the Parlcf Chamber. In a liuery Cub-board, Andi- 

orns, Bedsted, 2 Chests, 
In cushions, Curtaines & Valions, Boulsters and 

Pillowes, Brushes, blancketts, 
In Goods, Broadcloth searge, 

In earthen ware, Two sadles, Napkins, Table Cloath, 
In Napkins, sheets, pillow Beers, Towels, sheets & 

glasses, a wheel & reale, a press, Napkins, 09 19 00 

In the Kitchen Chamber. In a bedsteed, pillowes, 

rugg, forme, 
In y Hall Chamber. In a Table, bedsteed, cutlash, 
In a Bed, boulster pillow, curtaines & valliance, 
In a Rugg, Blanketts, sheets, 

In the Study. In Tables, chayres, chest, 

In Andiorns, Tonges, firepan, 

In Bookes, &c, 

In the Garrett. In Cask, Bedsteeds, Indian Corne, 

In a Trunkle Bedsted & Bed, 

In pease & wheat & caske, 

In Mault, 

In Woole, 

In Cattle, 

In Sheep & Swine, 



00 


17 


00 


00 


15 


00 


00 


05 


06 


01 


04 


00 


01 


16 


00 


04 


II 


00 


01 


01 


00 


00 


07 


00 


01 


03 


06 


02 


00 


00 


01 


03 


00 


01 


14 


00 


00 


17 


00 


06 


03 


00 


03 


01 


00 


00 


05 


00 


04 


l 9 


00 


03 


05 


00 


07 


18 


00 


07 


14 


00 


03 


04 


00 



01 


00 


00 


01 


00 


00 


04 


OS 


00 


05 


14 


00 


139 


03 


00 


001 


01 


00 


000 


10 


00 


127 


00 


00 


002 


12 


00 


003 


00 


00 


001 


18 


00 


001 


07 


00 


001 


00 


00 


029 


10 


00 


010 


00 


00 



APPENDIX 


VI. 






449 


In House & Home lott, 




100 


00 


00 


In Meadow 20 Acres, 




129 


00 


00 


In fower seuerall wood lotts, 




010 


00 


00 


In two hiues of Bees, 




001 


00 


00 


Mow Hay, 




006 


00 


00 



Sume totall is, ^563 01 00 

Apprized Nouember 1663 

p nos John Allyn 

Will: Wadsworth. 



57 



APPENDIX VII. 

(SEE PAGE 242.) 
DEATH OF SAMUEL STONE {second). 

This letter of John Whiting to Increase Mather is published in 
Volume VIII (Fourth series), Mass. Hist. Society Collections, pp. 
469-472. 

These for the Reverend Mr. Increase Mather, Teacher to the Church. 

Rev d S r ., — I received yours of the 6 th instant, and thank you for the 
intelligence therein giuen. Gour. Eaton and Haines were both walking 
in the day, and both died in the night by a suddain surprise : I haue 
communicated your desire to Capt: Ffitch. Since my last here is another 
dreadfully tremendous providence fallen out in the death of poore Mr. 
Stone, the short of whose sinfull life and sorrowful death is this. Sam 11 
Stone (the son and heire of Mr. Sam 11 Stone, the first Teacher of the 
Church in Hartford) whose abilities, naturall and acquired, were so con- 
siderably raised, that he preached some years in severall places, with a 
generall acceptation among those that heard him, as to the gift part of 
his work therein : He long since fell into a course of notorious drunk- 
enes, pretending a certaine infirmity of body with an ifiocent and nec- 
essary use of strong drink to relieve him against it, so as no endeavours 
of magistrates, ministers, &c, could reach him to any conviction, but 
he continued an habituall drunkard for sundry yeares ; yet still professing 
and defending himselfe to be as faultles therein as the child unborne. 
His precious, godly mother (whose life was sometimes hazarded, before 
she dyed, through the greife she receiued by hard words and wretched 
cariages she met with from him on the forementioned account : whence 
some that had occasion to obserue it, feared an untimely end would 
ouertake him, unless an eminent repentance were giuen.) His Mother 
desiring the churches forbearance of censure, till a solemne day were 
kept for him : which it was accordingly done [May '81] by sundry min- 
isters and other faithful . . . himselfe refusing to be there because (as 
he said) he would not dally with God in desiring conviction about a 
matter, wherein he knew himselfe fullv cleare. Whereupon after much 
patience and pains used, the Church proceeded to an excommunication, 
in which state he continued without any repentance or reformation man- 



APPENDIX VII. 



451 



ifested to his dying hower. He wasted his whole estate (lying in a very 
comfortable, house, a considerable quantity of land, and a good Library, 
left him by his worthy ffatherj to satisfy and serue that sordid lust, and 
so dyed in debt : — : Upon the 8 th of 8 ber , 1683. he went from the house 
where he lived, about noone ; was among his companions first at one, 
and then at another Taverne, and thence went in the evening, to a 
ffriends house, where his discourse was bitter and offensiue to some 
present: but going thence, the night being very dark, was found the 
next morning dead in the little Riuer that runs through the town of 
Hartford ; having missed the bridge. He fell clown upon the Rocks, 
and thence rowled, or some way gott into the water at a little distance, 
and there lay dead at breake of day. A terrible instance of the infatu- 
atings of sin, and fearful severity of Israel's Holy One against it : that 
in this dreadfull example, amongst many others, loudly proclaimes the 
coinand, Eccles : 7: 17, and the threatening : Proverb : 29, 1. 

I haue giuen you the sum of this lamentable story. The Lord make 
this awfull death powerfully instructive and awakening to thou that 
Hue : — 

If any thing in this or any other passages I have formerly written may 
be of publick usefulnes, I leaue it to your prudence, only requesting a 
concealement of my name, and what you judge unmeete under present 
circumstances for a publick view, especially in the matter of the Wake- 
mans, relating to Bishop B : — : The Lord assist and succeed you in 
all your holy labours for the good of soules, unto his glory, in whom I 
am Yours sincerely, 

J'= WHITING. 

Hartford, 8 ber 17. 1683. 



APPENDIX VIII. 

(see page 266.) 
SAYBROOK ARTICLES. 

ARTICLES. 

For the Administration of Church Discipli?ie, Unaniniotisly Agreed 
upon and Conse?ited to by the Elders a?id all the Chm'ches in the Colony 
of Co?i7iecticut, in New England, Convened by Delegation in a General 
Council at Say Brook, Sep. 9 th 1708. 

I. That the Elder, or Elders of a particular Church, with the Con- 
sent of the Brethren of the same, have power and ought to exercise 
Church Discipline according to the Rule of God's Word, in Relation to 
all Scandals that fall out within the same. And it may be meet in all 
cases of Difficulty for the Respective Pastors of particular Churches 
to take advice of the Elders of the Churches in the Neighbourhood, 
before they proceed to censure in such Cases. Mat. 18. 17, Heb. 13. 17. 
1. Cor. 5. 4, 5, 12. 2 Cor. 2, 6. Prov. 11, 14. Act. 15. 2. 

II. That the Churches, which are Neighbouring each to other, shall 
Consociate for mutual affording to each other such Assistance, as may 
be requisite, upon all occasions Ecclesiastical : And that the particu- 
lar Pasto?s &* Churches, within the respective Counties in this Govern- 
ment shall be one Consociation (or more if they shall judge meet) for 
the end aforesaid. Psal. 122. 3, 4, 5, &> 133. 1. Eccl. 4. 9 to 12. Act. 
15. 2, 6, 22, 23. 1 Tim. 4. 14. 1 Cor. 16. 1. 

III. That all Cases of Scandal, that fall out Within the Circuit of 
any of the Aforesaid Consociations shall be brought to a Council of 
the Elders & Also Messengers of the Churches, within the said Cir- 
cuit, i. e. the Churches of one Consociation, if they see cause to send 
Messengers, when there shall be need of a Council for the Determina- 
tion of them. 3 Job. ver. 9, 10. 1 Cor. 16. 1. Gal. 6. 1, 2. 2 Cor. 
13. 2. Act. 15. 23. 2 Cor. 8. 23. 

IV. That according to the Common practice of our Churches noth- 
ing shall be deemed an Act or Judgement of any Council, which hath 
not the major part of the Elders present Concurring, and such a num- 



APPENDIX VIII. 



453 



ber of the Messengers present as makes the Majority of the Council : 
Provided that if any such Church shall not see cause to send any Mes- 
sengers to the Council, or the persons Chosen by them shall not attend ; 
neither of these shall be any obstruction to the Proceedings of the 
Council, or Invalidate any of their Acts. Acts 15. 23. 1 Cor. 14. 32, 33. 

V. That when any Case is Orderly brought before any Council of 
the Churches it shall there be heard and determined which (unless 
orderly removed from thence) shall be a final Issue, and all parties 
therein Concerned shall sit down and be determined thereby. And the 
Council so hearing, and giving the Result or final Issue, in the case as 
aforesaid, shall see their Determination, or Judgement duly executed 
and attended, in such way or manner, as shall in their Judgement be 
most suitable and agreeable to the Word of God. Act. 15. 1 Cor. 5. 
5. 2 Cor. 2. 6, 11, &* 13. 2. Phil. 3. 15. Pom. 14. 2, 3. 

VI. That, if any Pastor & Church doth obstinately refuse a due 
Attendance & Conformity to the Determination of the Council, that 
hath the Cognizance of the Case, and Determineth it as above, after 
due patience used, they shall be reputed guilty of Scandalous Contempt 
& dealt with as the Rule of God's Word in such case doth provide, and 
the Sentence of Non-Co?nmu7iion shall be declared against such Pastor 
and Church. And the Churches are to approve of the said Sentence, 
by withdrawing from the Communion of the Pastor and Church, which 
so refused to be healed. Rom. 16. 17. Mat. 18. 15, 16, 17, by propor- 
tion Gal. 2. 11 to 14. 2 Thes. 3. 6, 14. 

VII. That, in Case any difficulties shall arise in any of the Churches 
in this Colony which cannot be Issued without considerable disquiet, 
that Church in which they Arise (or that Minister, or Member aggrieved 
with them,) shall apply themselves to the Council of the Consociated 
Churches of the Circuit to which the said Church belongs, who, if they 
see cause shall thereupon convene, hear, and determine such cases 
of difficulty, unless the matter bro't before them shall be judged 
so great in the Nature of it, or so doubtful in the Issue, or of such 
general concern, that the said council shall judge best, that it be 
referred to a fuller council consisting of the Churches of the other 
Consociation within the same County, (or of the next adjoyning conso- 
ciation of another County, if there be not two consociations in the 
County, when the difficulty ariseth) who together with themselves shall 
hear, judge, determine, and finally Issue such case according to the 
Word of God. Pro. 11. 14. 1 Cor. 14. 33, & 14. 24 by proportion. 

VIII. That a particular Church, in which any difficulty doth arise, 
may if they see cause, call a Council of the consociated Churches of the 



454 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



circuit, to which the said Church belongs, before they proceed to sen- 
tence therein, but there is not the same liberty to an offending Brother, 
to call the said Council, before the Church to which he belongs, proceed 
to Excommunication in the said case, unless with the consent of the 
Church. Act. 15. 2. Mat. 18. 15, 16, 17. 

IX. That all the churches of the respective consociations shall 
chuse, if they see cause one or two Members of each church, to Repre- 
sent them, in the councils of the said churches, as occasion may call 
for them, who shall stand in that capacity, till new be chosen for the 
same service unless any church shall incline to chuse their Messengers 
a new, upon the convening of such councils. Act. 15. 2, 4. 2 Cor. 8. 23. 

X. That the Minister or Ministers of the county Towns, and where 
there are no Ministers in such Towns, the two next Ministers to the 
said Town shall as soon as conveniently may be, appoint a time and 
place, for the Meeting of the Elders and Messengers of the Churches 
in the said County, in order to their forming themselves into one or 
more consociations, and notify the said time and place to the Elders 
and Churches of that County who shall attend at the same, the Elders 
in their own persons, and the Churches by their Messengers if they 
see cause to send them. Which Elders and Messengers so Assembled 
in council, as also any other council hereby allowed of, shall have power 
to adjourn themselves as need shall be, for the space of one year, 
after the beginning or first Session of the said council, and no longer. 
And that Minister who was chosen at the last Session of any council, to 
be moderator, shall with the advice and consent of two or more Elders 
(or in case of the moderators death, any two Elders of the same con- 
sociation) call another council within the circuit, when they shall judge 
there is need thereof. And all councils may prescribe Rules, as occa- 
sion may Require, and whatsoever they shall judge needful within their 
circuit, for the well performing and orderly managing the several Acts, 
to be attended by them or matters that come under their cognizance. 
Phil. 4. 8. 1 Cor. 14. 40. Phil. 3. 15, 16. Rom. 14. 2, 3. 

XI. That if any person or persons orderly complained of to a council, 
or that are Witnesses to such complaints, (having regular Notification 
to appear) shall refuse, or neglect so to do, in the Place, and at the Time 
specifyed in the Warning given, except they or he give some satisfying 
Reason thereof to the said council, they shall be judged guilty of 
Scandalous contempt. Col. 2. 5. Heb. 13. 17. 1 Thes. 5. 14. 

XII. That the Teaching Elders of each County shall be one Asso- 
ciation (or more, if they see cause) which Association or Associations 



APPENDIX VIII. 455 

shall Assemble twice a Year at least at such time and place, as they 
shall appoint, to consult the duties of their Office, and the common 
Interest of the Churches, who shall consider and resolve Questions & 
Cases of Importance, which shall be offered by any among themselves, 
or others, who also shall have power of- Examining and Recommending 
the candidates of the Ministry to the work thereof. Psal. 133. 1. 
Acts. 20; 17, 28 to 32. Mai. 2. 7. Mat. 5. 14. Deut. 17. 8, 9, 10. 
1 Tim. 5. 22. 2 Tim. 2. 15. 1 7Y;/z. 3. 6, 10. Rom. 10. 15. 1 Tim. 4. 14. 

XIII. That the said Associated Pastors shall take notice of any 
among themselves, that may be accused of Scandal, or Heresy unto or 
cognizable by them, examine the matter carefully, and if they find just 
occasion shall direct to the calling of the Council, where such offenders 
shall be duly proceeded against. Lev. 19. 17. 1 Cor. 5. 6. Tit. 3. 10, 
11. Isa. 52. 11. Mai. 3. 3. Tit. 1. 6 to 9. Deut. 13. 14. 3 Job, 
verses 9, 10. Rev. 2. 14, 15. 1 Tim. 1. 20 Qr 2 4. 14. 

XIV. That the said Associated Pastors shall also be consulted by 
Bereaved Churches belonging to their Association and recommend to 
such Churches such persons, as may be fit to be called and settled in 
the Work of the Gospel Ministry among them. And if such Bereaved 
Churches shall not seasonably call and settle a Minister among them 
the said Associated Pastors shall lay the state of such Bereaved 
Church before the General Assembly of this Colony, that they may 
take such Order concerning them, as shall be found Necessary for their 
peace and edification. 2 Cor. 11. 28. Phil. 2. 19, 20, 21. 2 Tim. 2. 15, 
Tit. 1. 6 to 10. Isa. 49. 23. 

XV. That it be recommended as Expedient, that all the Associations 
of this Colony do meet in a General Association by their respective 
Delegates, one or more out of each Association once a Year, the first 
Meeting to be at Hartford, at the time of the General Election next 
Ensuing the Date hereof, and so Annually in all the Counties succes- 
sively, at such time and place, as they the said Delegates shall in their 
Annual Meetings Appoint. Heb. 13. 1. 



APPENDIX IX. 

(SEE PAGE 308.) 

TESTIMONY AGAINST WHITEFIELD. 

THE TESTIMONY 

Of the North Association in the County of Hartford, in the Colony of 
Connecticut, convened at Windsor, Feb. 5, 1744, 5, against the Rev. 
Mr. George Whitefield and his Conduct. 

As the Errors, Disorders and Confusions, which, for some years past, 
have so generally prevailed through the Churches of this Land, had 
their Rise (as we apprehend) from the Preaching and Management of 
the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield in his former visit to New-England j 
and as this same Gentleman is come into the Country a second Time, 
and has already been admitted to preach in several Churches in a neigh- 
boring Province. 

We the associated Ministers in the Northern Part of the County of 
Hartford, think it needfull to bear a publick Testimony against him 
and his Conduct. 

We cannot but look upon Him as a Man deeply tinctured with Enthu- 
siasm, as is abundantly evident from his printed Journals. And as to 
his Manner of Preaching when he was in the Country before, we think 
it tended rather to move the passions of the Weak and Ignorant, than 
to inform the Understanding. 

We can by no Means think, that his going about from one Country 
and Town to another, to preach as he has done, is warranted by the 
Word of God. 

He appears to us to have been sowing the Seeds of Discord, Con- 
tention and Error in these Churches. We cannot but look upon him 
as guilty of very uncharitable, and unchristian Reflections upon the 
Body of the Ministers of this Land, the greater part of whom he was 
wholly a Stranger to ; his Conduct in this Matter we cannot but look 
upon as highly criminal, being directly contrary to the Rules of Chris- 
tianity, and tending to destroy the Usefulness of Ministers among their 
People ; and until he has made an open and publick Acknowledgement 
of his offence, and publickly professed his Repentance for it, we think 
he ought not to be admitted to preach in any of our Churches. 

His unjust Reproaches cast on our Colleges, which God has made 
such great Blessings to the Land, we think him bound to retract. 



APPENDIX IX. 



457 



And though it is pretended by some, that Mr. Whitefield is much 
altered since he was in the Country before, yet we cannot learn that he 
has given any sufficient Evidence of it, tho', for some Reasons or other, 
he may forbear to act in some Things as he did before ; neither can we 
learn that he has given any publick Satisfaction for his former Misbe- 
havior, which we think it his Duty to do. 

And as we* know not whither this itinerating Gentleman will steer 
his Course, and cannot tell but he will presume to visit the Churches 
under our Care, we have thought it needful and proper, thus publickly 
to testify against him, and his Management, hereby declaring, that 
under the present Circumstances of Things we shall by no Means 
admit him into any of our Pulpits, and in Faithfulness to the People 
under our respective Charges, we would solemnly warn and caution 
them, to take Heed and beware of him. 

Benjamin Colton, Pastor of a Church in Hartford. 



Stephen Steel, 
Thomas White, 
Elnathan Whitman, 
Daniel Wadsworth, 
Stephen Heaton, 
Jonathan Marsh, jun. 



Tolland. 

Bolton. 

Hartford. • 

Hartford. 

Goshen. 

{New) Hartford. 



We the Subscribers, Members of the North Association in the County 
of Hartford, not being present at the last Meeting of said Association, 
but having since seen and perused the foregoing Testimony relating to 
Mr. Whitefield, do hereby signify our Approbation of it, and our hearty 
Concurrence with our Brethren therein, by subscribing our Names 
hereunto. 

Samuel Whitman, Pastor of a Church in Farmington. 

Samuel Woodbridge, Hartford. 

John McKinstry, Elenton. 

Timothy Collins, Litchfield. 

Daniel Fuller, Willington. 

Andrew Bartholomew, Harri?zgton. 

Eli Colton, Stafford. 

Elisha Webster, Canaan. 

Cyrus Marsh, Kent. 



ss 



APPENDIX X. 

(see page 310.) 
u a list of the rev. mr. daniel wadsworth's library." 

Two bibles, one at 5 & the other at 20 s., - 

Patricks Commentaries on the Bible, 3 vol. fol., 

Lowths Commentary on the bible, 1 vol. fol., - 

Burket, Annotations on New Testament, 1 vol. fol., 

Bedfords Cronology, 1 vol. fol., - 

Willards Body of Divinity, - 

Crudens Scripture Concordance, 

Dr. Owen on the Hebrews, 

Traps Exposition on the 12 Minor Prophets, - 

Baxtres Catholick Theologie, -. - 

Morning Exercises, - - - - 

Wollastons Religion of Nature Deliniated, 

Clark on the Cause and origin of Evil, 2 vols., 

Monsier Pascals Thoughts on Religion, 

A Dictionary of all Religions, Antient and Modern, - 

Clark. Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, 

Cheny on health & long Life, - 

Wats on Geography & Astronomy, 

Seasonable Thoughts on the state of Religion : Dr. 

Chauncey, -._-,__ 

Jenkins on ye Reasonableness & Certainty of the 

Christian Religion, - 

Sharps Sermons, 4 vols, octavo, - 
Lock on the Human Understanding, 2 vols., 
Ladys Library, - 
The whole Duty of man, 

Common prayer Book, - - . . 

Dr. Colemans Sermons, - 
Watts Sermons, 3 vols., - 

Lock on Education, ..... 

Henrys Method of Prayer, 
Henry on the Sacrement, - 

2 vols., ..... 



I 


5 





33 








10 


10 





17 








18 








9 








10 


10 





3 








1 


10 





2 








1 








2 


10 





2 


10 





1 


10 





1 


10 





2 








1 


10 





2 









5 








8 








5 








3 








1 











8 





1 


15 





3 








1 


00 








10 








ro 





1 


10 






APPENDIX X. 

Vines on the Lord's Supper, 

Common place Book, - - • - 

Watts on Prayer, - 

Delaune, Plea for the Nonconformists, - 

Vincents Exposition, - - - - 

The Family Instructor, 2 vols., - 

Goughes Works, - 

Hoadleys Sermons, - 

Laws Serious Call, - 

The life of Dr. Cotton Mather, - 

Appletons Sermons, - - - - 

Higginsons Sermons, - 

Willards Peril of the Times Displayed, 

Allins Allarm, - - - - 

Doolittle on the Lords Supper, - 

Dr. Colemans Sermons on Mirth, 

A funeral sermon on Mr. Symes, 

Dr. Mr. Witch Book, - 

Dr. Increase Mather on Conversion, 

Penhallows History, - - - - 

Stoddards Sermons, - 

Mr. Mathers History of Commets, 

Dickinson on ye 5 points, 

Williams on the Duty and Interest of a people, 

Stoddards Guide, etc., - 

Shephards Sincere Convert, 

Dr. Doddridge on the power & grace of Christ, 

A Westminster Confession of Faith, - 

Barnards Sermons, - 

Gordons Geography, - 

The practice of Quietness, 

Hawness, Compleat Measure, 

Gassendis Astronomy, ... - 

Ames Christian Theology, 

Ames Medulla, ----- 

Greek Testament, - 

School Books, ----- 

Connecticut Law Book, - - - - 

Heavens Glory & Hells Terrour, 

One hundred and fifty pamphlets at 6 d., 

Cambles Treatise upon Conversion, 

I Do. Giles Fermin, - 

Secretarys Guide, ... - 

Wright on Regeneration, 



459 






5 





2 








O 


5 





O 


4 





I 








I 








2 


5 





O 


14 








2 








10 





O 


3 





O 


3 





O 


2 





O 


4 








2 








3 











9 





8 








4 








8 








8 








15 








7 








5 








9 





2 








I 


10 





2 








I 


10 








1 





O 


8 





O 


4 








2 








8 





I 








6 


10 





2 











8 





3 


18 








8 








15 








3 








10 






APPENDIX XI. 



(SEE PAGE 351.) 



SUBSCRIBERS TO PAROCHIAL FUND. 

" The following are the names of the subscribers to the aforesaid 
Fund with their respective sums annexed to each in Dollars. Dated, 
Hartford 6 th of December 1802." 

Jeremiah Wadsworth, Esq. 
John Caldwell, Esq., 
George Goodwin, Esq., 
Ephraim Root, Esq., 
Samuel Lawrence, Esq., 
Jonathan Brace, Esq., 
George Caldwell, Esq., 
William Mosely, Esq., 
Isaac Bull, 
Jacob Sergeant, 
Simeon Clark, 
Enoch Perkins, Esq., 
Timothy Burr, 
Thomas Bull, 
Ezekiel Williams, jr., 
Isaac Bliss, 

Asa & Daniel Hopkins, 
Eliakim Fish, 
Aaron Chapin, 
James Hosmer, 
Roger Cogswell, 
David Porter, 
Chauncey Goodrich, Esq., 
Sam'l & W" Wyllys, Esq., 
Charles Mather, 
Spencer Whiting, 
George Smith, 
Theodore Dwight, Esq., 
Jon ;i W. Edwards, 



$300 


Normand Smith, 


30 


100 


Benj. Bigelow, 


30 


100 


Peter W. Gallaudet, 


50 


100 


Tim P. Perkins, 


30 


IOO 


James H. Wells, 


30 


IOO 


Dwell Morgan, 


5o 


IOO 


Eli Ely, 


30 


IOO 


David Watkinson, 


50 


So 


Samuel P. Williams, 


30 


50 


Edward Danforth, 


50 


50 


Thomas Huntington, 


30 


60 


William Lawrence, 


50 


50 


Jesse Deane, 


So 


75 


John Trumbull, Esq., 


60 


50 


Josiah Beckwith, 


5o 


50 


Pardon Brown, 


So 


75 


Isaac D. Bull, 


30 


50 


Stephen Dodge, 


20 


50 


James Lothrop, 


50 


65 


Rebecca & James Burr, 


So 


30 


Rhoda Jones, 


20 


So 


Esther Talcott, 


10 


80 


Joseph Steward, 


20 


100 


Lucia Pratt, 


100 


So 


Aaron Colton, 


25 


50 


Samuel C. Camp, 


So 


5o 


Anna Goodwin, 


10 


50 


Joseph Burr, 


50 


30 


Charles Seymour, 


30 



APPENDIX XL 


461 


Oliver D. Cooke, 


5o 


Zechariah Pratt, 


30 


Lewis Bliss, 


20 


Normand Knox, 


20 


Noble Day, 


20 


Peter Thacher, 


15 


William & Mathew Talcott, 


80 


John Smith, 


3o 


David L. Dodge, 


30 


David Greenleaf, 


IS 


John Chenward, 


55 


William Lord, 


30 


Daniel Wadsworth, 


100 


James Caldwell, 


30 


Eunice Wadsworth, 


50 


Hezekiah Burr, 


20 


Elizabeth Wadsworth, 


50 


Moses Burr, 


IS 


Richard Goodman, 


60 


Thomas Sanford, 


10 


Harry Pratt, 


20 


Jonathan & James Goodwin, 


2d, 20 


Ezra Hyde, 


10 


Levi Kelsey, 


20 


Joseph Keeny, 


15 


Ezra Corning, 


15 


Sam'l & Dan'l Danforth, 


50 


Miles Beach, 


40 


Gideon Morley, 


17 


Daniel Moore, 


15 


Eliphalet Terry, jr., 


20 


Aaron Cooke, 


30 


Ashbel Spencer, 


30 


William Chadwick, 


20 


Samuel Goodwin, 


15 


Joseph Hart, 


50 


Julius Jones, 


10 


John Ripley, 


30 


William Goodwin, 


50 


Walter Mitchell, 


30 


Nathaniel Skinner, 


17 


Joseph Harriss, 


20 


George Wadsworth, 


15 


Titus L. Bissell, 


30 


John Sheldon, 


10 






Theodore Spencer, 


10 


• 


$4709 


George J. Patten, 


30 







APPENDIX XII. 



(SEE PAGE 355.) 
PEWS AND SLIPS SOLD TO MCH. 27, 1809, AND GROUND PLAN OF HOUSE. 



PEWS SOLD IN FEE SIMPLE. 



No. 

3- 

26. 

25- 

2. 

6. 



Daniel Wadsworth, 
John Caldwell, • 
Ephraim Root, 
Nathaniel Terry, 
Normand Knox £, : 
Henry Hudson \, 



$1100 
760 
760 
760 

162.50 

162.50 



24. 

4. 
20. 



5- 

23. 
22. 



Daniel Buck |, 162.50 

Walter Mitchell |, 162.50 650 
Dwell Morgan £, $320 
Ward Woodbridge £, 320 640 
George Goodwin, 620 

Thomas Bull |, $307.50 
Richard Goodman^, 307.50 615 
Nathaniel Patton, 605 

Jonathan Brace, 600 

William Mosely, 560 

Isaac Bull, 
Isaac D. Bull, 
James R. Woodbridge, J 
7. Daniel Porter 1 $265 
Peter W. Gallaudet, 

PEWS SOLD FOR THIRTY YEARS. 

No. 

9. Enoch Perkins |, $187.80 

Oliver D. Cooke £, 187.50 $375 

10. James Lathrop §, 202 

Peter Thacher J, 101 303 

19. William Watson, 300 

11. Ruth Patten, 244 
18. Chas. Mather, 254 
17. David Wadsworth. 228 

12. Nathaniel Terry, 225 



SLIPS SOLD IN FEE SIMPLE. 



No. 



80. Samuel & Rebecca Burr, $281 
82. Timothy Burr $j $210 

Henry Newbury '£, 210 420 
114. 



74- 
38. 
86. 

87. 
72. 

36. 
39- 
33- 
32. 

119. 
40. 

in. 
84. 

117. 



25 

Isaac Bliss, 
Alfred Bliss, 
George Caldwell, 
Samuel O. Camp, 
Mason F. Cogswell, 
Aaron Cook, 
Jesse Deane, 



237 
269 

253 
250 

253 
231 
245 
Edward & Dan'l Danforth, 240 



Theodore Dwight, 238 
Jonathan W. Edwards, 275 

Eli Ely, 225 

Miller Fish, 292 

Chauncy Goodrich, 285 

Richard Goodman, 435 

68. John Hall, 252 
113. William Hills, 253 

115. James Hosmer, 270 
79. Andrew Kingsbury, 292 
85. John Leffingwell, | 

Aaron Chapin, ) -> 

121. John Lee, 249 

6^. Samuel Lawrence, 225 

31. William Lawrence, 288 

116. Jacob Sargeant, 278 
112. Charles Seymour, 244 

69. Joseph Steward, 273 
120. John Trumbull, 255 

37. Solomon Taylor, 246 



APPENDIX XII. 



463 



SLIPS SOLD IN FEE SIMPLE 
CONTINUED. 



No. 
78 
8l 
71 



34- 

73- 



Eliphalet Terry, 
Spencer Whiting, 
Eunice & Elizabeth 
Wadsworth, 
Ezekiel Williams, 
David Watkinson, 
118. John Wales, 

Thomas S, Williams, 
Thomas Day, 
Wm. Watkinson, 
H. Averill, ^ each, 
83. David Wadsworth, $265 
67. " " 253 

94. " " 225 

105. " " 225 

106. " " 225 
88. Daniel Wadsworth, 

no. P. W. Gallaudet, 

60. The Committee, 

61. " 

62. " 
44- " 



273 
266 

300 
230 
250 



280 



1 193 

300 
258 

225 
225 
225 
225 



SLIPS SOLD FOR THIRTY YEARS. 



No. 
9 I. 

66. 
93- 



77- 
[08. 
92. 



63. 
89. 
43- 

S3- 
42. 



[09. 



Titus L. Bissell, $141 

Thomas Chester, 150 
Aaron Colton £, $58 

Josiah Beckwith ^-, 58 116 

Elisha Colt, 125 

Eliakim Hitchcock, 138 
Rena Hopkins, $50 

Miles Beach, 80 130 

Normand Knox, 100 

Anson G. Phelps, 168 

James Pratt, 108 

George J. Patten, 100 
Barzillai Russell, 
Samuel Smith, 

Richard Williams, ^ each, 100 

Jacob Sargeant, 145 



SLIPS SOLD FOR THIRTY YEARS 

CONTINUED. 

No. 

90. Normand Smith £, $77-5° 

John Smith \, 77.50 155 

59. Daniel Wadsworth, 112 

107. Chas. B. King, 120 

46. Benjamin Conkling, 102 

45. Richard L. Jones, 100 

55. Joseph Lynde, 100 

103. David Porter, 100 

$6. Daniel Wadsworth, 100 

5j. " " 100 

70. " " 100 

35. " " 100 



GALLERY PEWS IN FEE SIMPLE. 

No. 

135- 
130. 
132. 
I29. 
133. 
134. 
137. 
138. 
141. 



GALLERY PEWS SOLD FOR THIRTY 
YEARS. 



Nathan Strong, 


$150 


Daniel Wadsworth, 


ISO 


Charles Mather, 


150 


David Wadsworth, 


150 


Bought by Committee, 


150 


Isaac Bliss, 


160 


Bought by Committee, 


150 


a <t 


150 


a a 


150 



143. James Lathrop ^, $37.50 
Fredk. Lathrop J, 37.50 

144. James H. Wells, 

145. David Watkinson, 

146. David Porter |, $21 
Ward Woodbridge \, 21 
Normand Knox |, 21 
Spencer Whiting \, 21 

147. James B. Hosmer, 
136. Lemuel Swift & Co., 
140. Daniel Wadsworth, 
142. Enoch Perkins £, $38.50 

P. W. Gallaudet £, 38.50 



$75 
9i 
77 



84 

85 

101 

75 
77 



464 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



SUMMARY. 

13 Pews in Fee Simple, 

7 Pews for 30 years, 
47 Slips in fee simple, 
23 Slips for 30 years, 

In the Gallery. 
9 Pews in fee simple, 

8 Pews for 30 years, 



$8750 
1929 

12,319 

2710 



I3SO 
665 



$27,723 

REMAINING UNSOLD. 

No. 13, 14, 15, 16, 

21, 27, Six Pews below. 

No. 1, 28, 29, 30, 

41,47,48,49, 

50, Sh 52, 54, 

58, 64, 75, 76, 

95, 96, 97, 98, 

99, 100, 101, 

102, 104, 122, Twenty-six slips. 
In the Gallery, 17 Pews. 

The following named persons at 
the same date rented sittings in 
the New Meeting House. 
Charles and Asa Butler. 
Joseph Burr, Jr. 



James Barritt. 
Ezra Corning. 
Elisha P. Corning. 
George Church. 
Roswell Doolittle. 
Stedman Adams. 
Luther Freeman. 
John M. Gannet. 
Samuel Goodwin. 
Widow Anna Goodwin. 
Widow Daniel Goodwin. 
David Goodwin. 
Steward Gladden. 
Daniel Hopkins. 
Joseph Keeney. 
Romanta Norton. 
Fredk. Oaks. 
Joseph Rogers. 
John Ripley. 

Stedman. 

John Wadsworth. 

Henry Wadsworth. 

Thomas Wells. 

John Wing. 

Widow James Wells. 

Mrs. David Bull. 

W T idow Sarah Wickham. 



In 1819, Aug. 16, these slips and pews which had been turned over 
by the Building Committee to the Society had been sold at prices 
affixed : 



ip No. 60 in 


fee to Benj. 


Bolles, 




$160 


" 35, for 30 


years from 


1808, 


to Jabez Ripley, 


42 


46, 


" 


" 




" 


A. M. Collins, 


80 


103, 


a 


u 




k 


W. D. Smith, 


54 


56, 


u 


it 




u 


Benj. Phelps, 


40 


57, 


a 


a 




a 


R. Langdon, 


44 


ew No. 12, 


" 


'' 




" 


H. L. Ellsworth, 


86 


ew in Gallery, 


No. 


130 in 


fee, 


Daniel Buck, 


5i 


tc n 


a 


137 ' 


i 


Charles Hosmer, 


129 


a 


a 


138 ' 




H. L. 


Ellsworth, 


130 



GROUND PLAN OF HOUSE. 



59 



466 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 




APPENDIX XII. 



467 




77 


30 


78 


3i 


79 


32 


80 


33 


81 


34 


82 


©35 


83 


36 


84 


37 


85 


38- 


86 


39 


87 


40 . 


88 


UN- 1 


89 


42 


90 


43 


9i 


44 


92 


45 


93 


46 


94 


il47 


95 


48 


.96 


49 


97 
98 


50 
' 5i 


99 


52 



23 



22 



21 



20 



19 



17 



16 



15 



J.B.H 
H7 

N.K. 
I46 
&CO. 



D.W. 
145 



H.W. 
144 



J.L. 

143 

F. L. 



W. G. 
142 
E. P. 

141 

D.W. 
140 



149 



150 



51 



152 



53 



154 



155 



156 



GALLERY. 



APPENDIX XIII. 

(see page 375.) 

ARTICLES OF FAITH. 
Article I. 

We, as a Church, believe that Jehovah, the true and eternal God, 
who made, supports and governs the world, is perfect in natural and 
moral excellence, and that He exists in three Persons, the Father, the 
Son, and the Holy Ghost, who possess the same nature, and are 
equal in every divine perfection. 

Article II. 

We believe that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament were 
written by holy men, as they were moved by the Holy Ghost and are 
the infallible rule of doctrine and duty. 

Article III. 



We believe that God has made all things for Himself : that known 
lto Him are all His works from the beginning, a 
all things according to the council of His own will. 



unto Him are all His works from the beginning, and that He governs 



Article IV. 

We believe that men are immortal and accountable ; that the law of 
God is perfect and his government just and good ; and that all rational 
beings are bound to approve, love, and obey them. 

Article V. 

We believe that in consequence of the apostacy of Adam, sin and 
misery have been introduced into the world, and that all men, unless 
renewed by the Holy Spirit, are destitute of holiness, and under the 
curse of the divine law. 

Article VI. 

We believe that the Lord Jesus Christ assumed the nature of man, 
and by His mediation and death on the cross, made atonement for the 
sins of the world. 



APPENDIX XIII. 



469 



Article VII. 

We believe that men may accept of the offer^ of salvation freely 
made to them in the Gospel ; but that no one will do this, except he 
be drawn by the Father. 

Article VIII. 

We believe that those who are finally saved, will owe their salvation 
to the mere sovereign mercy of God, in Christ Jesus, through repent- 
ance and faith in Him, and not to any works of righteousness which 
they have done. 

Article IX. 

We believe that a 'conscientious discharge of the various duties 
which we owe to God, to our fellow-men, and to ourselves, as enjoined 
in the Gospel, is not only constantly binding on every Christian, but 
affords to himself and to the world, the only decisive evidence of his 
interest in the Redeemer. 

Article X. 

We believe that any number of Christians duly organized, constitute 
a church of Christ, the special ordinances of which are Baptism and 
the Lord's Supper. 

Article XI. 

We believe that all mankind must hereafter appear before the judg- 
ment-seat of Christ, to receive a just and final retribution, according to 
the deeds done in the body ; and that the wicked will be sent away into 
everlasting punishment, and the righteous received into life eternal. 

Such are the doctrines believed by this church. Do you cordially 
assent to them ? 

COVENANT. ' 

In the presence of God and this assembly you do now seriously, 
deliberately, and for ever give up yourselves, in faith and love and holy 
obedience, to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost ; accepting 
the Lord Jehovah to be your God ; Jesus Christ to be your prophet, 
priest, and king; and the Holy Ghost to be your Sanctifier, Comforter, 
and Guide. Although humbly acknowledging your weakness and guilt, 
and your liability to error and sin, still you do sincerely desire, and by 
the aids of Divine grace do promise, to receive in love the pure doc- 
trines of the Gospel, to walk in the statutes and ordinances of the Lord, 
blameless, and to do honor to your high and holy vocation by a life of 
piety towards God and benevolence towards your fellow-men. 

You do also cordially join yourselves to this Church of Christ, engag- 
ing to submit to its discipline, so far as conformable to the rules of the 



470 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Gospel, and solemnly covenanting, as much as in you lies, to promote 
its peace, edification, and purity, and to walk with its members in Chris- 
tian love, faithfulness, circumspection, sobriety, and meekness. This you 
promise and engage to do, with humble trust in the grace of God, and 
with an affecting belief that your vows are recorded on high, and will 
be reviewed in the day of final judgment. 

Thus you promise and engage. 

We then, as a church, do cordially receive you into our fellowship 
and communion, and give thanks to God who, we trust, has inclined 
your heart to fear his name. We promise to treat you with Christian 
affection ; to watch over you with tenderness ; and to offer our prayers 
to the great Head of the Church, that you may be enabled to fulfill the 
solemn Covenant which you have now made. The Lord bless you and 
keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you, and be gracious 
unto you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you 
peace. 

And now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling, and to pre- 
sent you faultless before the throne of His glory with exceeding joy, — 
to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and 
power, both now and forever. 

Amen. 



Article IV of the above Confession of Faith appears in the Manuals 
of 1822, 1835, 1843, and 1858 ; but disappears from the Manual of 1867 
and all afterward. 

The Covenant which appeared in the Manual of 1858 had large inter- 
polations from a manuscript found among Dr. Hawes' effects, endorsed 
" Dr. E. D. Griffin's form of admission to the Presbyterian Church in 
Newark, New Jersey." These interpolations had been apparently to 
some extent sanctioned by the Church in 1857 ; but on January 17, i860, 
the Church voted to recur to older form. The phraseology settled upon, 
however, as it appears in the Manuals of 1867 and afterward, is not 
exactly the language of 1822. 



APPENDIX XIV. 



(see page 396.) 



Subscribers to the altering and improving of the Meeting-house in 
the repairs of 1852. 



Calvin Day, 


$1,000 


John L. Boswell, 


$100 


Thos. S. Williams, 


500 


B. & W. Hudson, 


100 


Thomas Smith, 


500 


B. W. Greene, 


100 


John Warburton, 


500 


H. Fitch, 


100 


Harvey Seymour, 


500 


E. Fessenden, 


100 


Julius Catlin, 


500 


John Beach, 


100 


Roland Mather, 


500 


Alfred Smith, 


100 


Charles Seymour, 


400 


Tertius Wadsworth, 


100 


Joseph Trumbull, 


2$0 


Wm. W. Ellsworth, 


100 


Edmund G. Howe, 


250 


R. C. Smith, 


100 


Hungerford & Cone, 


250 


H. L. Pratt, 


100 


Samuel S. Ward, 


250 


Ralph Gillett, 


100 


Henry A. Perkins, 


250 


French & Wales, 


100 


James M. Bunce. 


250 


S. Bourne, 


100 


David Watkinson. 


250 


Gurdon Fox, 


100 


S. P. Kendall & Co., 


200 


Samuel Hamilton, 


100 


Erastus Smith, 


200 


L. Wilcox, 


100 


W. W. House, 


200 


Elizur Goodrich, 


100 


Francis Parsons, 


200 


Thomas Hender, 


100 


Noah Wheaton, 


200 


Wm. L. Wright, 


75 


Roswell Brown, 


200 


Nathan Colton, 


50 


Joseph Church, 


200 


H. L. Porter, 


50 


Goodwins & Sheldon, 


200 


George W. Corning, 


5o 


Frederick Tyler, 


200 


George Rust, 


50 


Calvin Spencer, 


I50 


Chauncey Ives, 


5o 


Alfred Gill, 


150 


James B. Hosmer, 


So 


John G. Mix, 


no 


G. T. & H. J. Wright, 


30 


Robert Buell, 


100 


Henry Benton, 


25 


Selah Treat, 


100 


Sam'l Coit, 


25 


B. E. Hooker, 


100 


Wm. B. Ely, 


25 


Wm. H. Allyn, 


100 


James H. Holcomb, 


25 



472 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



J. S. Huntington, 


$2.5 


Walter Harris, 


$20 


T. Willis Pratt, 


25 


James Tisdale, 


IS 


Collins Stone, 


25 


George M. Way, 


15 


Thacher, Goodrich & Stillman 


50 


W. E. Sugden, 


10 


Rockwood & Prior, 


25 


C. W. Elton, 


10 


C. A. Goodrich, 


25 


C. C. Strong, 


10 


Nicholas Harris, 
J. Gorton Smith, 


25 

20 






Total, 


$io,455 



APPENDIX XV. 

(SEE page 408.) 

SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR EXTINGUISHING THE DEBT OF THE SOCIETY 

IN 1879. 



Calvin Day, 
F. B. Cooley, 
S. S. Ward, 


$2,000 
2,000 
2,000 


George W. Corning, 
Edson Fessenden, 
John S. Welles, 


$250 
250 
200 


Mrs. H. A. Perkins, 


2,000 


Charles Seymour, 


250 


Mrs. Emily Jewell, ) 
Mrs. Charles A. Jewell, V 
Charles A. Jewell, ) 


1,000 


Harvey Seymour, 
Samuel Hamilton, 


250 
250 




Lewis E. Stanton, 


200 


Mrs. L. Church, 


1,000 


H. P. Stearns, 


200 


George P. Bissell, 


1,000 


Rowland Swift, 


200 


Mrs. E. G. Howe, ) 
Daniel R. Howe, \ 
Mrs. Lucius Barbour, \ 
Hattie D. Barbour, >• 


1,000 


John Allen, 
Ralph Gillett, 
M. Storrs, 


200 
200 
150 


1,000 


George Leon Walker, ^ 
returned by vote of the 




Lucius A. Barbour, ) 




125 


Robert E. Day, 
Mrs. George Roberts, ^ 
Henry Roberts, > 
George Roberts, ) 


750 


Society of Jan. 16, 1880, ) 
A. P. Pitkin, 


100 


800 


Mrs. Edward H. Perkins, 
William W. House, 


100 
100 


J. C. Parsons, 


600 


Charles T. Wells, 


100 


M. W. Graves, Admt., 
E. K. Hunt, Admt 4 , 


500 
500 


John Cooke, 
William M. Hudson, 


100 

TOO 


W. R. Cone, 
Robert Buell, 


500 

500 


William Thompson, 
M* B. Riddle, 


20 
25 


B. E. Hooker, 


500 


H. S. Fuller, 


25 


J. Coolidge Hills, 
Mrs. George C. Perkins, 
Leonard H. Bacon, 
H. Blanchard, 


500 
300 
300 
250 


J. H. Whitmore, 
Mary Williams, 
Hawley Kellogg, 
Mrs. Roswell Brown, 


25 

25 
25 

25 


John C. Day, 
60 


250 


Henry E. Taintor, 


25 



474 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



William E. Sugden, 

A. C. Hotchkiss, 

J. L. Blanchard, 

N. H. Morgan, 

James U. Taintor, 

G. S. Whiting, 

A. B. Gillett, 

S. M. Hotchkiss, 

L. M. Crittenden, 

Mary and Sarah Bigelow, 

J. W. Starkweather, 

Charles T. Welles, 

C. W. Eldridge, 

Of the young men : 



$25 


H. B. Langdon, 


25 


E. F. Harrison, 


25 


A. Catlin, 


25 


C. T. Millard, 


25 


T. J. Gill, 


25 


S. P. Davis, 


25 


W. M. Storrs, 


20 


R. A. Griffing, 


IO 


A. H. Pitkin, 


10 


A. B. Abernethy, 


10 


A. Brown, jr., 


10 


W. T. Price, 


10 


Benjamin G. Hopkins, 




J. D. Parker, 




Total, 



$117 



$23,007 



APPENDIX XVI. 

(SEE PAGE 409.) 
THE ORGAN. 

The organ, description of which is given below, was built: in 1883 by 
Hilborne L. Roosevelt, of New York. It is a particularly perfect and 
interesting instrument, not only on account of its size, but from the 
fact that it contains all of the most modern and improved devices which 
have characterized the advancement made of late years in organ build- 
ing, some of which have never been employed before, and are original 
with the builder. The Choir Organ, together with the Reeds and Mix- 
tures of the Great Organ, are enclosed in a Swell-box distinct and sep- 
arate from that containing the Swell Organ pipes, thus affording most 
extraordinary crescendo and diminuendo effects. 

The Windchests are those known as " Roosevelt chests :; and may 
be briefly described as being tubular pneumatic in principle, and afford- 
ing a separate pallet for every pipe. They admit of as perfect and 
rapid " repetition " as that of the most perfect piano forte, and are pro- 
ductive of an exceedingly light and agreeable touch, no matter how- 
large the organ, atd at the same time are subject to none of the derange- 
ments common to most organs. 

The Blowing Apparatus, consisting of large independent feeders 
operated by a Hydraulic Engine, is placed in a room in the cellar which 
draws its supply of air from the Organ Gallery. 

The Adjustable Combination Action is the most novel feature of the 
organ, and is original with the builder. It is controlled by thumb 
pistons placed beneath the keyboards: on any of which can be set or 
arranged such combinations of stops as the organist may desire ; he 
being able to change them as completely and as often as may be 
required. 

The Drawstop Action is exactly similar to that used for connecting 
the keys to the pallets of the windchest. 

The 32' Double Open Diapason, so rarely met with, and so seldom 
productive of satisfactory results, has here proved successful, and adds 
to the organ that majesty and grandeur which no substitute can do. 

The Case of the old instrument has been retained, with but slight 
alterations and repairs. 



476 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



The Keyboards are overhanging, and the Drawstops oblique faced. 

The Action or Mechanism, together with the workmanship through- 
out the organ has been carried to a higher degree of perfection than 
usual, and the Voicing displays great delicacy and characteristic quality 
of tone, as well as immense power of "full -organ " without harshness, 
and a perfect blending of the whole into an agreeable and massive tone, 
not lacking in brilliancy. 

SPECIFICATION. 

Three Manuals, Compass CC to a 3 , 58 Notes; and Pedals, Com- 
pass CCC to F, 30 Notes. 

GREAT ORGAN. 



I. Double Open Diapason, 16' 7. Flute Harmonique, 



2. Open Diapason, 

3. Gemshorn, 

4. Viola di Gamba, 

5. Doppel Flote, 

6. Octave, 



8. Octave Quint, 

9. Super Octave, 

10. Mixture, 

11. Trumpet, 



2f 

2' 

4 Ranks 
8' 



(Stops 8 to 11 are included in the Choir swell-box.) 



SWELL ORGAN. 



12. Bourdon, 

13. Open Diapason, 

14. Spitz Flote, 

15. Salicional, 

16. Dolce, 

17. Vox Celestis, 

18. Stopped Diapason, 
iq. Octave, 



20. Hohl Flote, 4' 

21. Flageolet, 2' 

22. Cornet, 3, 4, and 5 Ranks 

23. Contra Fagotto, 16' 

24. Cornopean, 8' 

25. Oboe, 8' 

26. Vox Humana, 8' 

27. Clarion, 4' 



CHOIR ORGAN- 

(Enclosed in a separate Swell-box.) 



28. Contra Gamba, 

29. Open Diapason, 

30. y£oline, 

31. Concert Flute, 


16 
8' 

8' 
8' 


33. Fugara, 

34. Flute d' Amour, 

35. Piccolo Harmonique, 

36. Clarinet, 


4' 
4' 
2! 
8' 


32. Quintadena, 


8' 








PEDAL 


ORGAN. 




37. Double Open Diapason 

38. Open Diapason, 

39. Dulciana, 


3 2' 
16' 
16' 


41. Quint, 

42. Violoncello, 

43. Flute, 


iof 
8' 
8' 


40. Bourdon, 


1 6' 


44. Trombone, 


1 6' 



APPENDIX XVI. 



477 



COUPLERS. 



45. Swell to Great. 

46. Choir to Great. 

47. Swell to Choir. 

48. Swell Octaves on Itself. 



49. Swell to Pedal. 

50. Great to Pedal. 

51. Choir to Pedal. 



52. Swell Tremulant. 

53. Choir Tremulant, 



MECHANICAL ACCESSORIES. 

I 54. Eclipse Wind Indicator. 



ROOSEVELT ADJUSTABLE COMBINATION PISTONS. 

55-58. Four under Great keys affecting Great and Pedal stops Nos. 

45, 46, and 50. 
59-63. Five under Swell keys affecting Swell stops Nos. 48, 49, and 52. 
64-66. Three under Choir keys affecting Choir stops and Nos. 47, 51, 

and 53. 

PEDAL MOVEMENTS. 

67-68. Two Roosevelt Adjustable Combination Pedals affecting 
Pedal stops. 



69. Great to Pedal Reversible 

Coupler. 

70. Pneumatic Starter for Water 

Engines. 



71. Balanced Swell Pedal. 

72. Balanced Choir Pedal. 



Great Organ, 
Swell Organ, 
Choir Organ, 
Pedal Organ, 

Total Speaking Stops, 
Couplers, 

Mechanical Accessories, 
Adjustable Combination Pistons, 
Pedal Movements, 



SUMMARY. 




11 Stops, 

16 " 


812 Pipes. 
1,100 " 


9 " 

8 " 


522 " 
240 " 



44 
7 
3 

12 
6 



Total, 



72 



Total Pipes, 



2,674 



APPENDIX XVII. 

(see page 410.) 
PROGRAMME OF CELEBRATION EXERCISES. 

1633 1883 

FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST 

IN HARTFORD. 



Two Hundred and Fiftieth 

ANNIVERSARY, 

Thurfday and Friday, Oct. nth and 12th, 

1883- 



" Then Samuel took a ftone, and fet it up between Mizpeh and Shen, and 
called the name of it Ebenezer, faying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us." — 
Text of Thomas Hooker's Thanksgiving Sermon, Preached Oct. 4, 1638. 



APPENDIX XVII. 



ORDER OF EXERCISES. 



479 



Thurfday Morning. 

I. ORGAN PRELUDE. Handel 

II. DOXOLOGY. 

III. READING OF SCRIPTURE. Pfalm lxxxix : 1-18. 

IV. PRAYER. 

V. ANTHEM. One Hundredth Pfalm. Tours. 

VI. ADDRESS OF WELCOME. 

William R. Cone. 
VII. PSALM cxxxvi. Tate and Brady . 

Tune, Lenox. 

To God the mighty Lord, 

Your joyful Thanks repeat : 
To Him due Praife afford, 
As good as He is great. 
For God does prove 
Our conftant Friend, 
His boundlefs Love 
Shall never end. 

2. Thro' Defarts vaft and wild 

He led the chofen Seed ; 
And famous Princes foil'd, 
And made great Monarchs bleed. 
For God, &c. 

3. Sihon,. whofe potent Hand 

Great Ammon's Sceptre fway'd ; 
And Og, whofe ftern Command 
Rich Bafhan's Land obey'd. 
For God, &c. 

4. And of His wond'rous Grace 

Their Lands, whom He deftroy'd, 
He gave to Ifr'el's Race, 
To be by them enjoy'd. 
For God, &c. 



4 8o • THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 

5. He does the Food fupply, 

On which all Creatures live : 
To God who reigns on high 
Eternal Praifes give. 
For God will prove 
Our conftant Friend, 
His boundlefs love 
Shall never end. 

VIII. EARLY TOPOGRAPHY OF HARTFORD. 

John C. Parsons. 
Illustrated by a copy of Porter's Map of Hartford in 1640, prepared by 
Solon P. Davis. 

IX. HYMN 1060. " O God, beneath Thy guiding hand." 
Tune, Bond. 



Thurfday Afternoon. 

I. PSALM lxxviii. Tate and Brady. 

Tune, Archdale. 

Hear, O my People, to my Law, 

devout Attention lend ; 
Let the Inftru6tion of my Mouth 

deep in your Hearts defcend. 
My Tongue, by Infpiration taught, 

fhall Parables unfold, 
Dark Oracles, but underftood, 

and owned for Truths of old ; 

2. Which we from facred Regifters 

of antient Times have known, 
And our Forefathers pious Care 

to us has handed down. 
We will not hide them from our Sons ; 

our Offfpring fhall be taught 
The Praifes of the Lord, whofe Strength 

has Works of Wonder wrought. 

3. That Generations yet to come 

mould to their unborn Heirs 
Religioufly tranfmit the fame, 

and they again to theirs. 
To teach them that in God alone 

their hope fecurely ftands, 
That they mould ne'er His Works forget, 

but keep His juft Commands. 



APPENDIX XVII. 481 

II. HISTORICAL ADDRESS. 

Rev. George Leon Walker, D. D. 

III. HYMN 820. "Let faints below in concert sing." 

Tune, St. Anns. 

IV. CLOSING VOLUNTARY. . Bach. 

Thurfday Evening. 

I. ORGAN VOLUNTARY. Mendelssohn. 

II. GLORIA IN EXCELSIS. Pease. 

III. ADDRESSES BY FORMER PASTORS. 

IV. MUSIC. " The Lord is mindful of His Own." Mendelssohn. 
V. ADDRESSES BY INVITED GUESTS. 

VI. HYMN 1014. " Chrift is coming ! Let creation " — Verdussen. 

Friday Morning. 

I. ORGAN PRELUDE AND CHORUS. St. Saens. 

II. PRAYER. 

III. THE MEETING-HOUSES OF THE FIRST CHURCH. 

Rowland Swift. 

IV. REMINISCENCES. 

Rev. Aaron L. Chapin, D. D. 
V. HYMN 757. " O where are kings and empires now." 

Friday Noon. 

SOCIAL REUNION AND COLLATION IN THE 
CHURCH PARLORS. 

Friday Afternoon. 

I. HYMN 522. " Call Jehovah thy falvation." Raff. 

II. • RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO THE CIVIL GOV- 
ERNMENT. 

Pinckney W. Ellsworth. 

III. SOCIAL AND DOMESTIC LIFE IN EARLY TIMES. 

Mrs. Lucius Curtis. 

IV. HYMN 824. " Bleft be the tie that binds." 

Tune, Dennis. 



01 



INDEX. 



A. 

Abernethy, A. B., 474. 

Adams, A. C, 405. 

Adams, Jeremy, 58/2, 420. 

Adams, Stedman, 464. 

Adams, William, 234. 

Agawam, Settlement, 2. 

Ainsworth's Version, 225. 

Allen, John, 414-5, 473. 

Allin, John, 17272, 19272. 

Allyn, John, 179*, 21572, 217, 231, 419, 

447- 

Allyn, Matthew, 5872, 179/2, 419, 447, 
Excommunication, 109. 

Allyn, William H., 471. 

Alvord, Benedict, 23672. 

Ames, William, associated with Hook- 
er, 43-4. 

Amsterdam, Hooker's residence, 42. 

Anderson, James, 376/2. 

Anderson, Robert, 415. 

Anderson, Rufus, 382. 

Andrews, Francis, 420. 

Andrews, Solomon, 251. 

Andrews, Samuel, Yale College, 256-7. 

Andrews, William, 419. 

Andros, Sir Edmund, 244. 

Anniversary (250th) programme, 478. 

Appleton, Thomas, 393. 

Arnold, John, 157/2, 420. 

Articles of Faith, text adopted 1822, 
468. 

Ashe, Simeon, 34. 

Aspen, Blackerby's School, 49. 

Assembly, Colonial, see Court. 

Associations formed, 268. 



Association, General, 268-9, 317 ; 
Whitefield, 307 ; Episcopacy, 
324 ; Presbyterian Assembly, 
358 ; Conn. Missionary Society, 

350- 

Association, Hartford North, 22622, 
313, 335; formed, 268 ; White- 
fieldian movement, 298-9, 308, 
456 ; Missionary Society, 349 ; 
Methodism, 358 ; Presbyterian- 
ism, 358-9. 

Association, New Haven East, 312, 

339- 
Asylum Hill Church, formation, 381. 
Averill, Eliphalet, 39422. 
Averill, H., 463. 

B. 

Bacon, Andrew, 15722, 16122, 419. 

Bacon, Leonard, D.D., 307, 403, 405, 
40872. 

Bacon, Leonard, 462. 

Bacon, Leonard H., 473. 

Baptism, Cotton's view, 52 ; early N. E. 
theory, 186-90; Pitkin's petition, 
196; Synods, I92-3, 200-2; ac- 
tion of Court, 192, 197, 200, 
202-3 ; First Church divided, 
205 ; parties, 208-9. 

Barbour, Hattie D., 473. 

Barbour, Lucius, 414-5. 

Barbour, Mrs. Lucius, 473. 

Barbour, Lucius A., 473. 

Barbour, W. M., Rev., 40872. 

Barding, Nathaniel, 420. 

Barnard, Francis, 14972. 



4 8 4 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Barnard, John, 157;?, 22172. 

Barnes, Mary, witchcraft, 179/2. 

Barnes, Thomas, 420. 

Barnstable Church and Isaac Foster, 

214. 
Barritt, James, 464. 
Barrowe, Henry, 9. 
Bartholomew, Andrew, 298/2, 457. 
Bartlett, Robert, 420. 
Bay" Psalm Book, 225. 
Bayle, Thomas, 24. 
Baysey, John, 420. 
Beach, John, 414, 415, 471. 
Beach, Miles, 461, 463. 
Beadle, Elias R., anecdote of Hawes, 

389. 
Beale, Thomas, 421. 
Beauchamp, John, 289/2. 
Beckwith, George, 300. 
Beckwith, Josiah, 370/2, 374/2, 460, 463 ; 

conference house, 357; deacon, 

414. 
Beecher, Lyman, 376. 
Bell, in First Church, 222; recast, 287, 

present 396. 
Bellamy, Joseph, anecdote of Strong, 

361. 
Belcher (Governor), 294. 
Benjamin, John, 58/2. 
Benton, Andrew, 179/2, 200. 
Benton. Henry, 471. 
Bernard, John, 419. 
Betts (Widow), 42 r. 
Bible, given by Reuben Smith, 354. 
Biddell, John, 420. 
Bigelow, Benjamin, 460. 
Bigelow, Mary, 474. 
Bigelow, Richard, 394/2. 
Bigelow, Sarah, 474. 
Birchwood, Thomas, 419. * 

Bishops, attitude toward Puritanism, 

4,8. 
Bissell, George P., 388, 473. 
Bissell, Hezekiah, 298/2, 315, 237- 
Bissell, Titus L., 461, 463. 
Blackerby, Richard, 49. 
Blakeman, Adam, 198/2. 
Blanchard, Homer, 414, 473. 
Blanchard, J. L., 474. 



Blinman, Richard, 193. 

Bliss, Alfred, 462. 

Bliss, Isaac, 460, 462-3. 

Bliss, Lewis, 461. 

Bliss, Thomas, 420. 

Bliss, Thomas, Jr., 420. 

Blumfield, William, 420. 

Boreman, Samuel, 179/2. 

Bolles, Benjamin, 464. 

Boston, First Church formed, 17; cove- 
nant, 58 ; Hutchinsonian dis- 
turbances, 98. 

Boswell, John L., 471. 

Bourne, S., 471. 

Boys in early N. E. congregations, 
231-2. 

Brace, Jonathan, 460, 462. 

Brackenbury, William, 212. 

Bradford, Jeremiah, 286/2. 

Bradford, William, emigrates, 12 ; his 
journal, 14. 

Bradstreet, Simon, 67, 68/2, 209. Fos- 
ter's death, 220. 

Brainard, David, 297. 

Braintree Company arrived, 17 ; re- 
moval to Newtown, 18; member- 
ship, 58/2. 

Breck, Robert, 330/2, 337. 

Brewster, William, emigrates, 12. 

Brewster, Prince, 322/2. 

Brigham, Daniel W., 414. 

Brown, A., Jr., 474. 

Brown, Mrs. Amelia W., 411/2, 473. 

Brown, Jeremiah, 374/2. 

Brown, Mary A., 374/2. 

Brown, Pardon, 460. 

Brown, Roswell, 471. 

Browne, Edward, 172/2. 

Browne, Robert, preaches separation, 9. 

Brownists, numbers and growth, 9 ; 
Hooker's attitude toward, 42. 

Brunson, John, 420. 

Buck, Daniel, 462, 464. 

Buckingham, Thomas, of Second 
Church, 219; marries Ann Fos- 
ter, 219; trustee of Yale Col- 
lege, 256-8; attempts a rival 
Commencement, 261 ; end of 
college quarrel, 261-3. 



INDEX. 



485 



Buckingham, S. G., 403. 
.Buell, Robert, 471, 473. 

Bulckley, Gershom, the Baptism ques- 
tion, 202. 

Bulkley, Peter, 78 ; at Hutchinsonian 
Synod, 101 ; at Synod of 1657, 
192/2. 

Bulkley, E., poem on Stone, 445. 

Bulkley, Edward, 279. 

Bull, Albert, 393/2. 

Bull, Caleb, deacon, 414. 

Bull, Mrs. David, 464. 

Bull, Isaac, 370/2, 460, 462 ; deacon, 

373,414- 
Bull, Isaac D., 460, 462. 
Bull, Michael, 374/2. 
Bull, Thomas, 420, 460, 462. 
Bunce, James M., 415, 471. 
Bunce, Russell, 374, 415 ; deacon, 414. 
Bunce, Thomas, 157/2, 421. 
Bundling, 237/2. 
Burgess, Ebenezer, supplies First 

Church, 367. 
Burial-grounds, early, 90-1. 
Burnham, William, marries Ann Fos 

ter (Buckingham), 219/2 ; quarrel 

at Kensington, 312. 
Burre, Benjamin, 420. 
Burr, Hezekiah, 461. 
Burr, James, 460. 
Burr, Joseph, 460, 464. 
Burr, Moses, 461. 
Burr, Rebecca, 460, 462. 
Burr, Samuel, 462. 
Burr, Timothy, 460, 462. 
Burton, Nathaniel J., 406, 408/2 ; 

Richardson's funeral sermon, 

408. 
Bussaker, Peter, 234. 
Butler, Asa, 464. 
Butler, Charles, 464. 
Butler, Jonathan, 283/2. 
Butler, Richard, 58/2, 420 ; deacon, 413. 
Butler, Thomas, 232. 
Butler, William, 419. 

c. 

Cadwell, Edward, 283. 



Cadwell, William, 337. 

Caldwell, George, 460, 462. 

Caldwell, James, 461. 

Caldwell, John, 370/2, 460, 462. 

Calkins, J. F., 398. 

Calkins, Phineas Wolcott, early life, 
398 ; associate Pastor of First 
Church. 398; resigns, 399. 

Cambridge Platform, 114/2/ endorsed 
by Synod of 1679, 2 4^- 

Cambridge Synod of 1637, 101 ; of 
1643, ITI 5 °f 1646-8, 113. 

Cambridge University, religious atti- 
tude, 29. 

Camp, Samuel C, 460, 462. 

Capron, Samuel M., deacon, 414. 

Cartwright, Thomas, 9, 29. 
I Case, David, 321. 
i Catlin, A., 474. 
! Catlin, Benjamin, 283/2. 

Catlin, Julius, 471; memorial window, 
409. 
j Catlin, Samuel, 283/2. 
I Chaderton, Lawrence, 10 ; at Em- 
manuel, 31, 48. 

Chadwick, William, 461. 

Chamberlain, Mellen, 324/2. 

Champlin, John, 343/2. 

Chapel of First Church, 357, see Con- 
ference House. 

Chapin, Aaron, 370/2, 460, 462 ; dea- 
con, 273^ 4i4- 

Chapin, Aaron L., 481. 

Chaplin, Clement, 421. 

Charles I, 12 ; "Book of Sports," 3. 

Charlestown settled, 17 ; Isaac Foster, 
213. 

Charter hidden, 244. 

Chauncey, Charles (President), 172/2, 
192/2. 



Chauncev, Charles, 



Seasonable 



Chauncey, Israel, 256. 
Chauncey, Nathaniel, 190/2, 228. 
Chelmsford, St. Mary's Church, 38; 

Hooker's preaching, 37-9. 
Chenward, John, 461. 
Chester, Dorothy, 421. 



486 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Chester, Thomas, 463. 

Churches, how organized, 5572, 5672; 
polity influenced by early sur- 
roundings, 54. 

Church membership, early N. E. theo- 
ry, 185-90. 

Church, Aaron, 349/z. 

Church, George, 464. 

Church, Joseph, 321, 471. 

Church, Leonard, 415. 

Church, Mrs. Leonard, 473 ; gift of an 
organ, 409. 

Church, Richard, 15772, 420. 

Clap, Thomas, 260, 264, 266. 

Clark, Daniel, 169, 1797Z, 218. 

Clark, John, 58;?, 419. 

Clark, Simeon, 460. 

Clarke, Nicholas, 420. 

Clifton, Richard, 12. 

Clock, present, 396. 

Coale, James, 420. 

Cobb, Dr., 31572. 

Cobbett, Thomas, 169, 17272, 19222. 

Cogswell, Mason F., 462. 

Cogswell, Roger, 460. 

Coit, Samuel, 471. 

Colchester, overtures to Hooker, 37. 

Cole, Anne, witchcraft, 176-8. 

Cole, John, 17922, 200. 

Coleman, Lyman, 37472. 

Coles, Susan, 233. 

Colleyer, John, 22172. 

Colleyer, Joseph, 22172. 

Collins, A. M., 464. 

Collins, Edward, 183. 

Collins, Samuel, 39. 

Collins, Sybil, marries Whiting, 183, 

2I07Z. 

Collins, Timothy, 457. 

Colt, Elisha, 463. 

Colton, Aaron, 37072, 460, 463 ; confer- 
ence house, 357 ; notes of ser- 
mons, 36572 ; deacon, 373, 414. 

Colton, Benjamin, 277, 315; White- 
fieldian controversy, 298, 307, 

457- 
Colton, Eli, 457. 
Colton, Nathan, 471. 



Colton, Walter, 37422. 

Cone, William R., 28672, 473, 479. 

Conference, Hartford, formed, 38572. 

Conference house, built in Temple 
street, 357 ; sold, 394 ; present 
house, 395; parlors, 407. 

Conkling, Benjamin, 463. 

Consociation, Hartford North, formed, 
268 ; suspended, 385. 

Consociational system, causes, 263-4 ; 
action of the Court, 264 ; dele- 
gates, 265 ; Saybrook Platform, 
266-8 ; associations and con- 
sociations formed, 268. 

Contributions in early N. E. churches, 
230. 

Cook, Abram, 352. 

Cook, John, 232, 31422, 

Cooke, Aaron (Capt.), 252. 

Cooke, Aaron, 461, 462. 

Cooke, John, 473. 

Cooke, Oliver D., 37872, 461, 462. 

Cooley, Francis B., 415, 473. 

Cooper, Samuel A., 39372. 

Copeland, Melvin, 415; deacon, 414. 

Copping, John, 9. 

Corning, George W., 471, 473; dea- 
con, 414. 

Corning, Elisha P., 464. 

Corning, Ezra, 461, 464; deacon, 414. 

Cornwall, William, 420. 

Cotton, John, 1, 68, 76, 81, no ; efforts 
to associate with Hooker, 44, 
50; Baptism, 52, 188; Thurs- 
day lecture, 70 ; influence, 82 ; 
Hutchinsonian controversy, 97, 
99; poem on Hooker, 428; on 
Stone, 443. 

Cotton, John, Jr., supplies First 
Church, 149. 

Court of Connecticut, instituted, 103; 
Pequot war, 92; "Fundamental 
Laws," 103; conversion of In- 
dians, 150; quarrel in First 
Church, 160, 167-72; Baptism 
controversy, 191-203 ; East 
Hartford Church, 250; Yale 
College controversy, 256-62 ; 



INDEX. 



487 



Saybrook system, 247, 264-8 ; 
First Society meeting-house, 
281, 284-6; trial of Davenport 
and Pomeroy, 301-4; forbid 
itinerant preaching, 302 ; at- 
tempts to improve public mor- 
als, 246, 269. 

Court of Massachusetts, complaints of 
Newtown settlers, 74 ; rebukes 
William Goodwin, 77 ; Cam- 
bridge Synod, 113; Hartford 
withdrawers' petition, 168; 
church membership, 187 ; Sy- 
nod of 1657, 192; Synod of 
1679, 245. 

Covenant, of Boston church, 58; of 
First Church, 57; probable 
original form, 207/2 ; under 
Woodbridge, Wadsworth, and 
Dorr, 248/2; under Strong, 375; 
Hawes' objections, 375 ; present 
form, 469; of Second Church, 
20772. 

Cowles, John, 179/2. 

Cowles, Whitefield, 349/2. 

Crane, John, 369. 

Crittenden, L. M., 474. 

Cross in Baptism, Puritan scruples, 8. 

Crow, Elizabeth, 286/2. 

Crow, John, 157/2, 419. 

Cudworth, Ralph, 31/2. 

Cullick, John, 155/2, 157/2, 159, 160, 
1 61/2, 168, 420. 

Currency, Colonial, in Wadsworth's 
time, 276; Dorr, 314; Strong, 
340 ; dollars and pounds, 341/2. 

Curtis, Jeremiah, 298/2. 

Curtis, Mrs. Lucius, 481. 

Cushman, Elisha, 374/2. 

Cutler, Ebenezer, 398. 

Cutler, Timothy, 243/2, 263/2. 

D. 

Daggett, David, anecdote of Strong, 

360. 
Daggett, Oliver E., anecdote of Hawes, 

388. 
Dana, Daniel, 370. 



Danforth, Daniel, 461, 462. 

Danforth, Edward, 460, 462. 

Danforth, Samuel (Rev.), 169, 172/2. 

Davenport, James,Whitefield's opinion 
of him, 299 ; extravagant preach- 
ing, 300, 305; trial, 303; later 
life, 305. 

Davenport, John, 102, no, 112, 166; 
quarrel between Whiting and 
Haynes, 184; Baptism question, 

193- 

Davenport, John 2d, 299. 

Davies, Thomas, 322. 

Davis, John, supplies First Church, 
149. 

Davis, S. P., 474. 

Davis, William, 149. 

Day, Calvin, 396/2, 415, 471, 473. 

Day, John C, 473. 

Day, Noble, 461. 

Day, Robert, 420. 

Day, Robert E., 473. 

Day, Thomas, 463. 

Deacons, manner of choice in 1691, 
249. 

Deane, Jesse, 460, 462. 

Denne, Christopher, at Tilton, 25. 

Dennis, William, 9. 

Delft, Hooker's residence, 42. 

Dell, William, 31/2. 

Dexter, H. M., 12/2, 62/2, 222/2, 267, 
267/2. 

Dickinson, James T., supplies First 
Church, 379/2. 

Digby, Sir Everard, 24, 33. 

Digby family, 22, 24. 

Dillingham, Theophilus, 31/2. 

Disbroe, Nicholas, 420. 

Dixie, Sir Wolstan, founds Market 
Bosworth School, 27 ; fellow- 
ships at Emmanuel, 27/2. 

Dod, John, 35. 

Dodge, David L., 461. 

Dodge, Stephen, 460. 

Doddridge, Philip, 292/2. 

Dolphin, vessel captured with Foster, 
213. 

Doolittle, Roswell, 464. 



488 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Dorchester Adventurers' Company, 15. 

Dorr, Edmund, 311. 

»Dorr, Edward (of Roxbury), 311. 

Dorr, Edward, 287% ; birth, parentage, 
and early life, 311 ; call to Ken- 
sington, 312; called by First 
Society, 313; ordination, 315; 
marries Helena Talcott, 315; 
religious declension, 316; Epis- 
copal movements, 322-6 ; views 
on Indian question, 326 ; failing 
health, 328 ; death, 329 ; funeral 
sermon, 330; will, 332%. 

Drake, Francis, invites Hooker to 
Esher, 35. 

Drake, Mrs. Francis, Hooker's minis- 
trations, 36. 

Dudley, Mercy, 238%. 

Dudley, Thomas, 68%, 71 ; settles at 
Newtown, 67. 

Dunbar, Moses, 340%. 

Dutton, Deodatus, 393%. 

Dutton, S. W. S., 403. 

Dwight, Theodore, 460, 462. 

Dwight, Timothy, 339 ; hymn book, 
349; First Society meeting- 
house, 356. 

Dwight, Timothy, 398. 

Dyer, Col., anecdote of Strong, 361. 

E. 

Earthquake of 1755, 318%. 

East Hartford Church formed, 250; 
Samuel Woodbridge settled, 
251. 

Easton, Jonathan, 283%. 

Easton, Joseph, 420. 

Easton, Joseph (deacon), 231, 249, 413. 

Edward VI, Protestant movement, 4. 

Edwards, Daniel, 313, 314%, 328. 

Edwards, John, 223%, 283, 287%; pa- 
rentage, 289%; building accounts 
of First Society, 289; deacon, 

4I3- 

Edwards, Jonathan, 273% ; revival in 
Northampton, 292; advice to 
Whitefield, 294, 297. 

Edwards, Jonathan (Hartford), 370%. 



Edwards, Jonathan W., 460, 462. 

Edwards, Lewis, 374%. 

Edwards, Richard, 289%. 

Edwards, Sarah, 328%. 

Edwards, Timothy, 226, 273%, 276; 

eulogy on Woodbridge, 273. 
Edwards, "William, 28972. 
Eldridge, C. W., 474. 
Eliot, Sir John, 13. 
Eliot, John, 71, 170%, 172%, 213; with 

Hooker at Little Baddow, 41. 
Eliot, Joseph, 184%, 202. 
Elizabeth, religious policy, 7. 
Ellsworth, John, 355^. 
Ellsworth, Henry L., 378^, 464. 
Ellsworth, Oliver, 341%. 
Ellsworth, P. W., 481. 
Ellsworth, William W., 374,378%, 415, 

471 ; deacon, 414. 
Elmer, Edward, 58%, 420. 
Elton, C. W., 472. 
Ely, Eli, 460, 462. 
Ely, Nathaniel, 419. 
Ely, William B., 471. 
Emerson, John, 239%. 
Emmanuel College founded, 30; Cal- 

vinistic attitude, 31 ; Hooker 

graduates, 29 ; Stone graduates, 

48. 
Endicott, John, 15, 55, 72. 
Eno, James, 196%. 
Ensign, James, 419. 
Ensign, Moses, 283%. 
Ensign, Thomas, 232. 
Ensign, Thomas Jr., 283%. 
Ensigne, James, 283%. 
Ensworth, Texell, 221%. 
Episcopalians, number in Hartford in 

1774. 3 2 4- 

Episcopal Church, attempt to plant in 
Hartford, 322. 

Episcopacy, why feared by the N. E. 
churches, 322-4 ; action of Gen- 
eral Association, 324; Dorr's 
sermon, 325. 

Esher, Hooker assumes the living, 34. 

Evangelical Magazine, 350. 



INDEX. 



489 



Evening meetings instituted, 344 ; con- 
ference house, 357. 



Fairfield, Eastern Consociation, 297. 

Fenwick, "Lady," 108. 

Fessenden, Edson, 471, 473. 

Field, Zachary, 157/2, 420. 

Fielde, Thomas, 47. 

Filer, Walter, 179/2. 

Firmin, Giles, 129. 

First Church, 57/2, 66, 86; when gath- 
ered, 53, 62 ; how organized, 
57-62 ; remove to Hartford, 84 ; 
death of Hooker, 115; efforts 
for a successor, 146-50; cause 
of quarrel under Stone, 152-5; 
Stone resigns, 156; Goodwin 
set aside, 156; minority with- 
draw, 156; Council of 1656, 
157-8; Council of 1657, 160-2; 
apparent reconciliation, 163; 
renewal of quarrel, 164 ; Court 
interferes, 166, 169; Council 
meets at Boston, 172 ; minority 
emigrate to Hadley, 174; merits 
of the quarrel, 174; Whiting 
settled, 175; Haynes settled, 
183 ; Baptism controversy, 184- 
205 ; antecedent causes, 185 ; 
Half-way covenant, 194; Church 
divided and Second Church 
formed, 205 ; death of Haynes, 
211; Foster settled, 212, 219; 
his death, 220; John Holloway's 
gifts, 221 ; Usages in early days, 
222 seq.; Woodbridge settled, 
240 ; state of religion, 241 ; 
revival, 247 ; additions, 249 ; 
Woodbridge's illness, 252 ; his 
death, 271 ; Wadsworth settled, 
275 ; meeting-house controversy, 
278-87 ; Whitefieldian move- 
ment, 292-307 ; Wadsworth's 
death, 310; Dorr settled, 315; 
religious state, 316-19; Dorr's 
death, 329 ; Strong settled, 337 ; 
revivals, 344, 356 ; evening meet- 



ings instituted, 344, 356 ; present 
meeting-house, 352; conference 
house, 357 ; called " Presbyteri- 
an," 358 ; death of Strong, 365 ; 
Hawes settled, 371; Sunday- 
School, 374; Prudential Com- 
mittee, 375; revivals, 376-80, 
397; colonies from First Church, 
380; Calkins settled as col- 
league, 398 ; resigns, 399 ; Gould 
settled, 403 ; death of Hawes, 
400; Gould resigns, 405; Rich- 
ardson settled, 405 ; resigns, 
408 ; Walker settled, 408 ; pres- 
ent membership and prospects, 
411. 

First Society formed, 205/2; seating, 
230; boys, 232; Woodbridge's 
settlement and illness, 239, 240, 
251-2 ; East Hartford Society, 
250; Wadsworth's settlement, 
271, 275; singing, 228; meet- 
ing-house controversy, 278-289; 
lands given, 22172; alienated, 
321 ; Dorr's settlement, 309, 
313; Watts' Psalms, 320; 
Strong's settlement, 335 ; parish 
fund raised, 351; spent, 395; 
present meeting-house, 352-5 ; 
conference house, 357, 394; 
Hawes' settlement, 370 ; organs 
393, 409; alterations of meet- 
ing-house, 395, 409 ; Warburton 
Chapel, 404; Parsonage, 404; 
Calkins called, 398; Gould 
called, 403 ; Richardson called, 
405 ; Walker called, 408 ; debt 
paid, 408 ; 250th anniversary, 
409. 

Fish, Eliakim, 460. 

Fish, Miller, 462. 

Fisher, Louisa, 372. 

Fisher, Thomas, 421. 

Fitch, Eleazer T., supplies First 
Church, 367, 371. 

Fitch, H., 471. 

Fitch, James, 181, 202, 242. 

Fitch, Joseph, 200, 447. 



490 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Fitch, Samuel, 149/2. 

Flint, Abel, 344/2, 348, 349/2, 354, 360, 
37i, 374. 

Forbes, John, 42. 

Foster, Ann, marries Thomas Buck- 
ingham, 219; marries William 
Burnham, 219/2. 

Foster, Isaac, birth and parentage, 
212; captured by the Turks, 
213 ; overtures from several 
churches, 213-15; called to 
Windsor, 217; settled over 
First Church, 212, 219; marries 
Mehitabel Willys (Russell), 219 ; 
death, 220. 

Foster, James P., 415. 

Foster, Mrs. Mehitable (Russell), 219, 
240. 

Foster, William, 212. 

Foster, Mrs. William, 212. 

Fourth (Free) Church, formation, 380. 

Fox, Gurdon, 471. 

Freeman, Luther, 464. 

French & Wales, 471. 

Friend, John, 421. 

Fuller, Daniel, 298/2, 457. 

Fuller, H. S., 473. 

Fuller, Samuel, 54. 

Fund raised by First Society, 351 ; 
expended, 395. 

Fundamental Laws enacted, 103 ; 
Hooker's influence, 105. 

Funerals, early N. E. customs, 234. 

G. 

Gage, William L., 405, 408. 
Gallaudet, Peter W., 352, 460, 463. 
Gannet, John M., 464. 
Garwood, Daniel, 420. 
Gaylord, William, 315/2. 
Gibbons, William, 419. 
Gibbons, Mrs. William, 149//. 
Gilbert, John, 200. 
Gilbert, Joseph, Jr., 229, 291. 
Gilbert, Joseph B., 374/2. 
Gilbert, Mrs. Mary, 222, 240/2. 
Gill, Alfred, 471. 
Gill, T. J., 474. 



j Gillett, A. B., 474. 
Gillett, Ralph, 471, 473. 
Gilman, Eli, 415. 
i Ginnings, John, 420. 
Gladden, Steward, 464. 
Gleason, Anson, 376/2. 
Gleason, Chauncey, 462. 
Goodell, C. L., 405. 
Goodfellow, Thomas, 421. 
Goodman, Richard, early settler, 58/2, 

419. 
Goodman, Richard, 352, 461, 462. 
Goodrich, Charles A., 415, 472. 
Goodrich, Chauncey, 460, 462. 
Goodrich, Elizur, 471. 
i Goodrich, Samuel, 371. 
Goodwin, Anna, 460, 464. 
Goodwin, Caleb, 374, 415. 
; Goodwin, Daniel, deacon, 319, 414. 
Goodwin, Mrs. Daniel, 464. 
Goodwin, David, 464. 
Goodwin, Edward, 353/2, 415. 
Goodwin, George, 237^, 3S 2 > 37^, 

460, 462. 
Goodwin, Hannah, 196/2. 
Goodwin, Hosea, 420. 
Goodwin, James, 2d, 461. 
Goodwin, James M., 374/2. 
Goodwin, Jonathan, 461. 
Goodwin, Nathaniel, Sr., 221/2, 240/2. 
Goodwin, Nathaniel, deacon, 249, 413. 
Goodwin, Ozias, 157/2. 
Goodwin, Ozias, deacon, 319, 414. 
Goodwin, Samuel, 461, 464. 
Goodwin, Thomas, 119. 
Goodwin, William (ruling elder), 58/2, 

60, 81, 102, 161/2, 423; ruling 

elder, 59; home lot, 87, 419; 

quarrel with Stone, 154-173; 

removes with his party to Had- 

ley, 174; dies, 413. 
Goodwin, William (sexton), 210/2. 
Goodwin, William, "to set the psalm," 

229. 
Goodwin, William, 461. 
Goodwins & Sheldon, 471. 
Gould, George H., 390/2, 401, 405, 

408/2 ; early life, 403 ; settled 



INDEX. 



49I 



over First Church, 403 ; minis- 
try, 404 ; resigns, 405. 

Grannis, Edward, 200. 

Grant, Matthew, 9572, 117, 429. 

Grant, Seth, 420. 

Grave, George, 420. 

Graves, Isaac, 15772. 

Graves, M. W., 473. 

Graves, Thomas, 218. 

Gray, Walter, 233. 

Great awakening, beginnings, 292 ; 
Whitefield's preaching, 293-7 ; 
extravagancies, 298 seq.; legisla- 
tive acts, 301-3 ; public opinion 
divided, 305. 

Greatorex, Henry W., 39372. 

Greene, Bartholomew, 421. 

Greene, B. W., 471. 

Green, Samuel, 379. 

Greenhill, Samuel, 421. 

Greenleaf, David, 461. 

Greensmith, Nathaniel, witchcraft, 178, 
179*2. 

Greensmith, Rebecca, 178, 17.9/2. 

Greenwood, John, 9. 

Gregson, Phebe, 21072. 

Gridley, Thomas, 420. 

Griffin (vessel), 1. 

Griffing, R. A., 474. 

Griswold, Edward, 17972. 

Griswold, Mary, 311. 

Griswold, Matthew, 311. 

Griswold, Phebe, 31172. 

H. 

Hadley settled bv withdrawers from 
First Church, 174. 

Hale, Richard, 47. 

Hale, Samuel, 17972. 

Hales, Samuel, 420. 

Hales, Thomas, 420. 

Half-way Covenant (see also Baptism), 
principle involved, 193-5 ! when 
introduced, 20472; effect, 241, 
270, 317, 341 ; abandoned by 
First Church, 357. 

Hall, John, 420, 462. 



Hamilton, Samuel, 471, 473 ; memorial 

window, 409. 
Hampton Court Conference, 10. 
Hanford, Thomas, 19872. 
Harlakenden, Mabel, 183. 
Harris, Nicholas, 472. 
Harris, Walter, 472. 
Harrison, E. F., 474. 
Harriss, Joseph, 461. 
Hart, John, 17972. 
Hart, John, Dorr's ordination, 279, 

315^ 

Hart, Joseph, 461. 

Hart, Levi, 36872. 

Hart, Luther, 34972, 350. 

Hart, Stephen, 5872, 419. 

Hart, William, 300. 

Hartford, 2, 87, 90, 244, 280 ; removal 
from Newtown, 75-85; begin- 
nings of settlement, 8^ ; first 
court, 84 ; laid out, 87 ; named, 
180; original proprietors, 419; 
epidemic of 1647, ll A\ si ze in 

i755> 319. 

Harvard College, early support from 
Conn., 146. 

Hawes, Erskine J., 401. 

Hawes, Joel, 378, 379, 382, 383; birth 
and early life, 369 ; settled over 
First Church, 368-71; marries 
Louisa Fisher, 372 ; Sunday- 
Schools organized, 374; present 
Articles of Faith, 375; revivals, 
376-80; "Lectures," 377; writ- 
ings, 385 ; traits and anecdotes, 
382, 386-91 ; Pastor Emeritus, 
399; death, 400; children, 401; 
will, 40172. 

Hawes, Mrs. Louisa, 372, 401. 

Hawes, Mary, 382-3. 

Hawley, Rufus, 34972. 

Hayden, William, 420. 

Haynes, John (Governor), 2, 68//, 71, 
J2, 80, 81, 1077/, 419. 

Haynes, John, 252, 265. 

Haynes, Joseph, birth and education, 
183 ; settled over First Church, 
183 ; witchcraft trials, 177 ; Bap- 



492 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



tism controversy, 184-204; First 
Church divided, 205; marries 
Sarah Lord, 211; children, 
21 172; death and will, 211. 

Heath, Isaac, 17272. 

Heaton, Stephen, 457. 

Hender, Thomas, 471. 

Henry VIII, religious policy, 4. 

Herbert, Benjamin, 15772. 

Heretics, laws against, 10472. 

Hertford, Stone's birthplace, 46; de- 
scription, 47. 

Hewitt, Nathaniel, 379. 

High Commission, 7. 

Higginson, Francis, 15, 56. 

Higginson, John, 8972, 119, 15472, 157, 
166, 420, 447. 

Hill, Thomas, 3172. 

Hill, William, 420. 

Hills, J. Coolidge, 473. 

Hills, William, 462. 

Hinckley, Governor, 214. 

Hincks, E. Y., 40872. 

Hitchcock, Eliakim, 463. 

Hoadly, C. J., vi, 8972, 9072, 17772, 20072, 
25372, 28772, 32172, 32272. 

Holcomb, James H., 471. 

Hollister, Whiting, 415. 

Holloway, John, 420 ; gift to First 
Church, 221. 

Holton, William, 420. 

Hooker, Anne, 4172. 

Hooker, Bryan E., 471, 473; deacon, 
414. 

Hooker, Johanna, 3672, 422. 

Hooker, John, 22. 

Hooker, John, Hooker's will, 422. 

Hooker, Mary, 423. 

Hooker, Nathaniel, 285. 

Hooker, Samuel, 17872, 182, 201, 217, 
218, 422. 

Hooker, Sarah, 4072, 423. 

Hooker, Sarah, 32872. 

Hooker, Thomas, birth and parentage, 
20; at school at Market Bos- 
worth, 26 ; at Emmanuel, 28-34 ; 
conversion, 34; at Esher, 34; 



marries Susanna ■ , 36 ; lec- 
turer at Chelmsford, 37-39; 
attracts notice of Laud, 39; 
teaches at Little Baddow, 41 ; 
cited before the High Commis- 
sion, 41 ; flees to Holland, 41-2 ; 
Amsterdam, 42 ; Delft, 42 ; Rot- 
terdam, 43; negotiations to go 
to N. E., 44 ; with Cotton, 50 ; 
with Stone, 50 ; arrival, 1, 18, 
68 ; ordained at Newtown, 61 ; 
Roger Williams, 72 ; John Endi- 
cott, 72 ; restlessness of the New- 
town people, 74-83 ; removal to 
Hartford, 84-5; Home lot, 87, 
419; Pequot war, 92; Thanks- 
giving Sermon, 1638, 95; mode- 
rator of Synod of 1637, 97, 101 ; 
Synod of 1643, in; Westmin- 
ster Assembly, no; preaching, 
121; personal appearance, 122; 
last sermon, 116, 429; death, 
1 1 4-5; commemorative poems, 
426; will and inventory, 115, 
42 2 . Writings, purpose, 1 1 8-2 1 ; 
published works, 435, " Survey," 
112, 144-5; Theological views, 
123; clear view of sin necessary 
for conversion, 125; danger of 
self-deception, 128 ; " Hopkins- 
ian" views, 129; inability of 
man, 133; God's purpose not 
always to save, 134; extent of 
God's work, 136; consolations 
of the Gospel, 137 ; witness of 
the Spirit, 139; age at conver- 
sion, 140 ; what is a powerful 
ministry ? 141. 

Hooker, Mrs. Thomas, 36, 84, 422. 

Hooper, Bishop, 5. 

Hopkins, Asa, 460. 

Hopkins, Benjamin G., 474. 

Hopkins, Daniel, 460, 464. 

Hopkins, Daniel, P., 37472. 

Hopkins, Edward, 94, 419, 423. 

Hopkins, John, 419. 

Hopkins, Rena, 463. 



INDEX. 



493 



Hopkins, Thomas, 283/z, 314/2. 

Horton, Thomas, 31/z. 

Hosmer, Charles, 464. 

Hosmer, Mrs. Charles, 407. 

Hosmer, James, 352, 460, 462. 

Hosmer, James B., 91/2, 463, 471. 

Hosmer, Thomas, 58/2, 419. 

Hotchkiss, A. C, 474. 

Hotchkiss, Samuel M., 415, 474; dea- 
con, 414. 

House, William W., 409/2, 415, 471, 
473 ; deacon, 414. 

Hovey, Alvah, 379. 

Howe, Daniel R., 411/2,473; deacon, 
414. 

Howe, Edmund G., 471. 

Howe, Mrs. E. G., 473. 

Howe, Joseph, early life, 334 ; overtures 
of First Society, 333; death, 

334- 

Hubbard, George, 420. 

Hubbard, Nathaniel, supplies First 
Church, 253. 

Hubbard, William, 17272. 

Hudson, Barzillai, 357, 378^, 415, 
471. 

Hudson, Henry, 374, 378/2,415, 462. 

Hudson, W., 471. 

Hudson, William M., 415, 473. 

Humphrey, Heman, supplies First 
Church, 367/2. 

Humphrey, Michael, 196/2. 

Hungerforth, Thomas, 421. 

Hungerford & Cone, 471. 

Hunt, E. K., 473. 

Huntington, Joseph, 348/2; " Calvinism 
Improved," 348. 

Huntington, J. S., 472. 

Huntington, Samuel, 348/2. 

Huntington, Thomas, 460. 

Hurd, William S., 415; deacon, 414. 

Hutchinson, Mrs. Anne, 82, 97 ; doc- 
trines, 98-9 ; Synod of 1637, ioij 
. exiled, 102; killed, 102. 

Hyde, Ezra, 461. 

Hyde, William, 420. 



I. 

Ince, Jonathan, 420. 

Indians, 91, 94,241, 245; sell land to 
settlers, 87 ; Pequot war, 92 ; 
drunkenness, 243; school at 
Farmington, 254 ; Dorr's plea, 
326 ; Wheelock's school, 328/2. 

Ives, Chauncey, 471. 



James I, 11, 33; Puritan hopes, 10. 
James II, changes Colonial govern- 
ments, 243. 
Jenkins, J. L., 403. 
Jepson, William, 322. 
Jewell, Charles A., 409/2, 473. 
Jewell, Mrs. Charles A., 473. 
Jewell, Mrs. Emily, 473. 
Johnson, Edward, poem, 443. 
Johnson, Mary, 176/2. 
Johnson, Nathan, 394/2. 
Jones, Julius, 461. 
Jones, Rhoda, 460. 
Jones, Richard L., 463. 
Jones, W. Wallace, anecdote of Hawes, 

389; 
Jubal Society, 393/2. 
Judd, Thomas, 419. 

K. 
Keaine, Robert, 70. 
Keeny, Joseph, 461, 464. 
Kellogg, Hawley, 473. 
Kellog, Nathaniel, 420. 
Kelsey, Levi, 461. 
Kelsey, Stephen, 221/2. 
Kelsey, William, 58/2, 420. 
Kendall, S. P., 396/2, 471. 
Kennedy, Algernon S., 376/2. 
Kensington, Dorr, called, 312. 
Keylor, Ralph, 420. 
King Philip, 241. 
King, Charles B. f 463. 
King, Thomas, 283/2. 
Kingsbury, Andrew, 357, 378/z, 462. 
Kingsbury, Betsy, 374/z. 



494 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Kirk, Edward N., revival preaching, 

379- 
Knewstubs, 10. 
Knox, David, 357. 
Knox, Elijah, 374/2. 
Knox, Normand, 461, 462-3. 
Knox, Susan, 374/z. 



Lands, given by John Holloway, 221 ; 
alienated by First Society, 321. 

Langdon, H. B., 474. 

Langdon, R., 464. 

Latimer, John, 148/2. 

Larcum, John, 321. 

Larcum, Sarah, 321. 

Lathrop, Frederick, 463. 

Laud, Archbishop, 3 ; character, 13; 
Hooker, 40-1. 

Law, Jonathan, 301. 

Lawrence, Edward A., 372/2. 

Lawrence, John, 335, 336. 

Lawrence, Samuel, 460, 462. 

Lawrence, William, 460, 462. 

Lay, Edward, 420. 

Lechford, Thomas, 56/2, 187;?. 

Lecture, weekly, in early New Eng- 
land, 232 (see Thursday Lecture). 

Lectureships, Puritan, 37-8. 

Ledlie, Hugh, 337. 

Lee, John, 462. 

Lefnngwell, John, 352, 462. 

Leighton, Alexander, 41 . 

Lewis, William, 58/2, 157/2, 419. 

Little Baddow,Hooker teaches there,4i. 

Little, Ephraim, 304. 

Loomis, John, 217. 

Lord, Epaphras, 286/2. 

Lord, George, 328;?. 

Lord, Ichabod, 286/2. 

Lord, Richard, 58/2, 22 in, 286/2, 42b. 

Lord, Thomas, 419. 

Lord, Thomas, Jr., 420. 

Lord, William, 461. 

Lord, William H., called by First 
Church, 405. 

Lothrop, Frederick, 463. 

Lothrop, James, 460, 462. 



Ludlow, Roger, 16, 94, 97. 
Lyman, Richard, 420, 
Lyman, Theodore, 393/2. 
Lynde, Joseph, 463. 

M. 

Manwaring, John, 25-6. 

Marfield, Hooker's birthplace, 20-1. 

Market Bosworth, school, 27. 

Marriage, Early New England customs, 
235 ; ministers authorized to 
marry, 236. 

Marsh, Cyrus, 457. 

Marsh, Hezekiah, 314/2. 

Marsh, John, 157/2, 420. 

Marsh, John, of Wethersfield, 364/2. 

Marsh, Jonathan, 276, 292, 298/2. 

Marsh, Jonathan, Jr., 298/2, 457. 

Marshall, Samuel, 179/2. 

Marvell, Matthew, 419. 

Marvin, Reynold, 421. 

Mary, religious policy, 5. 

Mather, Charles, 460, 462. 

Mather, Cotton, 129, 213 ; Ratio Dis- 
ciplines, 224/2. 

Mather, Increase, 129/2., 213, 216, 218, 
252/2. 

Mather, Richard, 114/2., 159, 172/2, 188, 
192/2., 

Mather, Roland, 471. 

Mather, Samuel, 213, 215, 256. 

Mather, Samuel (Capt), 279. 

Mason, John, 16; Pequot war, 92. 

Mason, Jonathan, 283/z. 

Mason, Lowell, 393. 

Massachusetts Bay Company, 15. 

Maverick, John, 16. 

Maynard, John, 420. 

McCurdy, Anna, 342. 

McEwen, Malcom, 343/2. 

McKinstry, John, 457. 

Meacham, Esther, 338. 

Meacham, Joseph, 338. 

Meeting-House, at Newtown, 53, 68; 
temporary structure in Hartford, 
88 ; first permanent building, 
89-90 ; controversy under Wads- 
worth, 278-87 ; second house 



INDEX. 



495 



built, 288-90; struck by light- 
ning, 320 ; rod and clock, 321 ; 
present edifice built, 352-5 ; 
ground plan in 1809, 466-7 ; 
alterations, 395, 409. 

Merrell, W., 22172. 

Michaelson, John, 37. 

Mildmay, Roger, 38. 

Mildmay, Sir Walter, 38 ; founds Em- 
manuel, 30. 

Millard, C. T. s 474. 

Millenary Petition, 10. 

Miller, William F., 34972. 

Miller, William H., deacon, 414. 

Ministers' Meeting, 68. 

Minor, John, 150. 

Minturn, Benjamin G., 34372. 

Missionary Society of Conn., organized, 
3 SO. 

Mitchell, Jonathan, 169, 17272, 173, 192, 
200 ; preaches to First Church, 
146; settles at Cambridge, 147. 

Mitchell, Walter, 461-2. 

Mix, John G., 471. 

Moody, Dwight L., 407. 

Moodey, John, 419. 

Moore, Daniel, 461. 

Morals, decline from earliest period, 
236. 

Morgan, Dwell, 460, 462. 

Morgan, N. H., 474. 

Morley, Gideon, 461. 

Morrice, John, 420. 

Morris, Myron S., 405. 

Moses, John, 19672. 

Mosely, Samuel, 36872. 

Mosely, Sarah, 36872. 

Mosely, William, 460, 462. 

Mount Wollaston, settled, 17. 

Munn, Benjamin, 420. 

Munson, Thomas, 421. 

Music, in early New England worship, 
224-6 ; in First Church, 226-9. 

Mussy, Hester, 5872. 

Mygatt, Joseph, 420; deacon, 413. 

N. 

Nash, Mr., gives bond for Hooker, 41. 
Nettleton, Asahel, 379. 



Newbury, Benjamin, 217. 

Newbury, Henry, 462. 

New Haven, 112, 192, 230; church or- 
ganized, 107. 

Newton, Joan, 236. 

Newtown, settled, 18, 67 ; Woods' de- 
scription, 67 ; discontent of the 
settlers, 74-81 ; houses sold to 
Shepard's company, 83 ; emi- 
gration to Hartford, 83-5. 

Nichols, Cyprian, 231, 252, 275, 279, 
28372. 

Nichols, James, 337. 

Noble, Thomas, 47. 

Norris, Edward, 183, 19272. 

North Church, formation, 380. 

Northampton, revival, 292. 

Northway, George, 232. 

Norton, John, 50, 159, 161, 169, 17272, 
19272. 

Norton, Romanta, 464. 

Nott, Abraham, 300. 

Nowell, Samuel, 218. 

Noyes, James, of Newbury, in. 

Noyes, James, of Stonington, 256. 

Noyes, Joseph, 259, 301. 

Nye, Philip, 119. 



o. 



Oaks, Frederick, 464. 

Oakes, Urian, 216, 218. 

Olcock, Thomas, 420. 

Olcott, Michael, 37472. 

Olmstead, Ensign, 17972. 

Olmstead, James, 5872, 419. 

Olmstead, John, 420. 

Olmstead, Joseph, 231; deacon, 249, 

413- 

Olmsted, Lynde, 39372. 

Olmstead, Nicholas, 200, 233. 

Olmstead, Richard, 91, 420. 

Ordination, Episcopal, how regarded, 
56«. 

Organ, introduced, 393 ; second instru- 
ment, 393 ; present organ given 
by Mrs. Church, 409; descrip- 
tion, 475. 



496 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



P. 

Paget, John, 42. 

Paine, L. L., 398. 

Palmer, Cotton, 287-8. 

Pantry, William, 419. 

Parish system, 18772. 

Parker, John D., 474. 

Parker, Edwin P., 20872, 401, 40S7Z. 

Parker, Robert, 23872. 

Parker, Thomas, in, 238. 

Parker, William, 420. 

Parsonage, 37872, 404. 

Parsons, David, 371. 

Parsons, Francis, 471. 

Parsons, H. M., 403. 

Parsons, John C, 4097?, 473, 480. 

Parsons, Jonathan, 29572, 311. 

Partridge, Ralph, 188-9. 

Partrigg, William, 15772. 

Pastor, office of, 62-3. 

Patten, George J., 461, 463. 

Patten, Ruth, 462. 

Patten, William, 329. 

Patton, Nathaniel, 462. 

Payne, Benjamin, deacon, 414. 

Pearl Street Church, formation, 380-1. 

Pease, Theodore, 37472. 

Peck, Paul, 420 ; deacon, 249-413. 

Peck, Paul, Jr., 249. 

Pelsant, William, 27. 

Penry, John, 9. 

Pentecost, George F., 407. 

Pequot War, 91-4. 

Perkins, Edward H., 407. 

Perkins, Mrs. Edward H., 473. 

Perkins, Enoch, 37072, 460, 462, 463. 

Perkins, George C, 407. 

Perkins, Mrs. George C, 473. 

Perkins, Henry A., 415, 471. 

Perkins, Mrs. H. A., 473. 

Perkins, Matthew, 33372. 

Perkins, Nancy, 37472. 

Perkins, Nathan, 34972, 354, 366, 371; 

ministry at West Hartford, 33372. 
Perkins, Timothy P., 460. 
Perkins, William, 29. 
Perry, David, supplies First Church, 

36572. 



Perry, David L., 34272. 
Phelps, Anson G., 463. 
Phelps, Austin, 398. 
Phelps, Benjamin, 464. 
Phelps, Timothy, 34372. 
Phillips, William, 420. 
Pierce, John, 421. 
Pierpont, James, 25272, 256. 
Pierson, Abraham, 256-7. 
Pike, John, 23972. 
Pitkin, A. H., 474. 
Pitkin, A. P., 473. 
Pitkin, Catherine, 33372. 
Pitkin, John O., 415. 
Pitkin, Joseph, 31572. 
Pitkin, Roger, 22172. 
Pitkin, Timothy, 3337Z, 337. 
Pitkin, William, 19572; petition re- 
specting Baptism, 195-6, 200. 
Plymouth, 12, 192; influence of the 
church in moulding early N. E. 
polity, 54-5. 
Pomeroy, Benjamin, Whitefieldian 

movement, 301-4. 
Porter, Daniel, 462. 
Porter, David, 460, 463. 
Porter, H. L., 471. 
Porter, Isaac, 34972. 
Post, Stephen, 89, 419. 
Pratt, Abram, 421. 
Pratt, Daniel, 249. 
Pratt, Harry, 461. 
Pratt, H. L., 471. 
Pratt, John, 77-8, 419. 
Pratt, Lucia, 460. 
Pratt, T. Willis, 472. 
Pratt, William, 420. 
Pratt, Zachariah, 461. 
Prayer, in early N. E. worship, 223 ; at 

funerals, 234. 
Prayer-Book, few traces in early N. E. 

literature, 223. 
Prentiss, Betsey, 369. 
Presbyterian Assembly, intercourse 
with the general association, 358. 
Presbyterianism, declared to be Con- 
gregationalism, 358. 
Price, W. T., 474. 



INDEX. 



497 



Prudden, Peter, 157, 190. 

Prudential Committee, instituted, 374. 

Punishments, at Lecture-time, 233. 

Purcasse, John, 420. 

Puritans, origin of the name, 6. 

Putnam, George, 37472. 

Pynchon, William, 94, 97. 

Q. 

Quakers, laws against, 104;?. 
Queen's College, Hooker matriculated, 
28. 

R. 

Randall, Abraham, 23672. 

Randolph, Edward, 244. 

Raynolds, Dr., 10. 

Read, John, 251; supplies First Church, 

2 53- 
Reeve, Robert 19672. 
Rich, Charles, supplies First Church, 

38272. 
Richards, James, 200, 217. 
Richards, John, 149/2, 249. 
Richards, Nathaniel, 5872, 420. 
Richards, Thomas, 421. 
Richards, Thomas, 275, 28372; deacon, 

250, 4I3- 
Richardson, Elias H., 40872, early life, 

406 ; settled over First Church, 

405 ; ministry, 406-7 ; resigns, 

408; settled at New Britain, 

408 ; death, 408. 
Riddle, Matthew B., 473. 
Ripley, Jabez, 464. 
Ripley, John, 461, 464. 
Robbins, Thomas, 344, 362. 
Roberts, George, 415. 
Roberts, Mrs. George, 473. 
Roberts, George, Jr., 473. 
Roberts, Henry, 473. 
Robinson, John, 12. 
Rockwell, Matthew, 31572. 
Rockwood & Prior, 472. 
Rogers, E., 19372; poem on Hooker, 

427. 
Rogers, Joseph, 464. 
Rogers, Nathaniel, 190. 
Roosevelt, H. L., 475. 
63 



Root, Ephraim, 460, 462. 
Root, Jesse, 336. 
Root, Thomas, 420. 
Rosseter, Bray, 16472,447. 
Rotterdam, Hooker's residence, 43. 
Rowland, David S., Whitefieldian 

movement, 308-9. 
Rowland, Henry A., 371. 
Ruling Eldership, nature of office, 59. 
Ruscoe, William, 419. 
Russell, Barzillai, 463. 
Russell, Mrs. Daniel, 219. 
Russell, John, 16572, 193. 
Russell, Mehitable, 31072. 
Russell, Noadiah, 256. 
Russell, Richard, 17272. 
Russell, Samuel, 256. 
Russell, William, 295. 
Rust, George, 471. 



Sables, John, 421. 

Sackett, Simon, 5872. 

Sadler, John, 3172. 

Sage, Seth, 34972. 

Saints' Days, Puritan scruples, 8. 

Salem, settled, 15; church, 16, 54-6, 
190. 

Saltonstall, Gurdon, 254, 260, 261. 

Sanford, Robert (sexton), 21072. 

Sanford, Robert, 322. 

Sanford, Thomas, 461. 

Sargeant, Jacob, 460, 462, 463. 

Sassacus, 94. 

Saybrook, Yale College, 256, 262. 

Saybrook Platform, 302, 318, 452. 

Saybrook, Synod (see also Consocia* 
tional System), convened, 263-5 > 
results, 266-8, 452. 

Scott, Thomas, 419. 

Scottow, Joshua, 23472. 

Scripture-reading in early N. E. wor- 
ship, 224. 

Scrooby, emigration of Separatist con- 
gregation, 12. 

Seaman, Lazarus, 3172. 

Seating, in early N. E. meeting-houses, 
230; how graded, 23172; in First 
Church, 231, 320. 



498 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Second Church, formed, 205; declara- 
tion, 206; covenant, 20772. 

Selden, Thomas, 420. 

Separatist movement, 5, 6. 

Sequestration, committee of, 25, 26. 

Sequin, 9272. 

Sermon ; in early N. E. worship, 229. 

Sewall, Samuel, 213, 2527*. 

Sexton, George, 22272. 

Seymour, Charles, 37872, 460, 462. 

Seymour, Charles, Jr., 35572, 471, 473. 

Seymour, Harvey, 3337*, 368, 471, 473. 

Seymour, Richard, 420. 

Sheldon, Isaac, 31 572. 

Sheldon (Shelding), John, 275, 278/2, 
279, 280 ; deacon, 250, 413. 

Sheldon, John, 461. 

Shepard, James, 335. 

Shepard (Shepherd), John, 28372; 
deacon, 250, 413. 

Shepard, John, 31472; deacon, 414. 

Shepard, Joseph, 28372. 

Shepard, Joseph, Jr., 28372. 

Shepard, Samuel, of Rowley, 18372. 

Shepard, Samuel, 28372. 

Shepard, Thomas, 49, 50, 69, 101, 147, 
189; before Laud, 14; settles in 
Newtown, 83 ; " Hopkinsian " 
views, 129. 

Shepard, Thomas, Jr., 1727Z, 18272. 

Shepard, Thomas, 3d, 214. 

Shepherd, George R., 415. 

Sherman, John, 159, 17272, 192/2, 213. 

Silverwood, Thomas, 25. 

Simsbury, vote of Society endorsing 
Cambridge Platform, 30972. 

Singing, in early N. E. worship, 224 ; 
in First Church, 226-9, 3 20 > 394» 

Skelton, Samuel, 15, 56. 

Skinner, Alfred R., 415. 

Skinner, John, 419. 

Skinner, John, 22172. 

Skinner, Joseph, 22172. 

Skinner, Nathaniel, 461. 

Slavery, in Conn., 21972, 22072, 25572, 
33272. 

Smith, Alfred, 471. 

Smith, Anne, 339, 342. 



Smith, Arthur, 420. 

Smith, Benjamin, 279. 

Smith, David, 288. 

Smith, Erastus, 39672, 471. 

Smith, Giles, 421. 

Smith, George, 336, 460. 

Smith, Henry, 190, 424. 

Smith, Henry B., 403. 

Smith, J. Gorton, 472. 

Smith/ John, 461, 463. 

Smith, Normand, 37072, 374, 415, 460, 

463- 
Smith, R. C, 471. 
Smith, Reuben, 343, 355. 
Smith, Samuel, 463. 
Smith, Solomon, 336, 355; deacon, 414. 
Smith, Thomas, 381, 415, 471 ; deacon, 

414. 
Smith, W. D., 464. 
Societies, formed, 20672. 
Sparks, Dr., 10. 
Spencer, Ashbel, 461. 
Spencer, Calvin, 471. 
Spencer, George, 37472. 
Spencer, Gerard, 28972. 
Spencer, Obadiah, 22172. 
Spencer, Obadiah, Jr., 221/2. 
Spencer, Theodore, 461. 
Spencer, Thomas, 5972, 420. 
Spencer, William, 5872, 419. 
Spurstow, 3172. 
Stanton, Lewis E., 473. 
Stanton, Thomas, 150, 420. 
Stanley, Caleb, 24072, 252. 
Stanley, Thomas, 15772, 419. 
Stanley, Timothy, 419. 
Starkweather, J. W., 474. 
Starr, E. C, 4087Z. 

State House, used by First Church, 287. 
Stearns, Henry P., 473 ; deacon, 414. 
Stebbins (Stebbing), Edward, 5872, 88, 

113,419, 425; deacon, 413. 
Stedman, John, 19672, 200. 
Steel, Stephen, 29872, 315, 457. 
Steele, George, 5972, 15772, 160, 419. 
Steele, James, 14972, 200. 
Steele, John, 5872, 84, 419. 
Sternhold and Hopkins' Version, 225. 



INDEX. 



499 



Steward, Joseph, 348, 36872, 370, 460, 
462; deacon, 373, 414; supplies 
First Church, 36572, 368. 

Stiles, Ezra, 339. 

Stiles, Isaac, 301. 

Stocking, George, 420. 

Stoddard, Esther, 27372. 

Stoddard, Solomon, 27072; volume of 
the Lord's Supper, 270. 

Stone, Collins, 415, 472; deacon, 414. 

Stone, Mrs. Elizabeth, 10872, 446. 

Stone, Elizabeth, 27772, 446. 

Stone, John, 182, 421. 

Stone, Mary, 446. 

Stone, Rebeccah, 446. 

Stone, Sarah, 446. 

Stone, Samuel, birth, 46; family, 46, 
4772; at school, 47; at Em- 
manuel, 48 ; studies theology 
under Blackerby, 49; Lecturer 
at Towcester, 49-50; with Hook- 
er, 50 ; arrival in New England, 
1, 18 ; ordained at Newtown, 62 ; 
removal to Hartford, 84; home 
lot, 87; Pequot war, 92-4; Synod 
of 1637, 97; marries, 108; Synod 
of 1646-8, 113; quarrel in the 
church, causes, 154-6; resigns, 
156; council of 1657, 162; at 
Boston, 193; letter to the church, 
164; petition to the court, 167 ; 
council of 1659, 173; high min- 
isterial views, 175 ; death, 176 ; 
commemorative poems, 443 ; 
will, 445 ; character and writings, 
1 80-1. 
Stone, Samuel, Jr., 446; death, 24172, 

450- 
Storrs, Melancthon, 415, 473. 
Storrs, William M., 474. 
Stoves, introduced into meeting-house, 

355- 

Strong, C. C, 472. 
Strong, Frances A., 34272. 
Strong, John, 338. 
Strong, John McCurdy, 34272. 
Strong, Nathan, Sr., 337, 338. 
Strong, Nathan, 340, 366, 463 ; birth 
and parentage, 338 ; early life, 



339 ; settled over First Church, 
335-7, 340; marries, 339, 342; 
children, 34272 ; character of his 
ministry, 342, 344, 356; distill- 
ing enterprise, 343 ; writings, 
345-9, 36272 ; missions, 349 ; 
"Conn. Evangelical Magazine," 
350; conference house, 357 ; 
" North Presbyterian Church," 
358 ; traits and anecdotes, 360-2; 
death, 365. 

Strong, Nathan, 3d, 34272., 36872. 

Strong, Nathan, 4th, 34272. 

Strong, Sarah B., 34272. 

Stuyvesant, Peter, 17772. 

Sugden, William E., 472, 474. 

Sunckquassen, 8772. 

Sunday-schools, organized, 374. 

Surplice, Puritan scruples, 8. 

Swift, Lemuel, 463. 

Swift, Rowland, 28972., 35372., 473, 481 ; 
deacon, 414. 

Symmes, Zechariah, 17272., 19272. 

Synod, Hutchinsonian of 1637, 97-101; 
Cambridge, 1643, IXI > Cam- 
bridge, 1646-8, 1 13-15; Boston, 
1657, 192-3; Boston, 1662, 194; 
Reforming Synod, 1679, 2 45~6 ; 
Saybrook, 1708, 263-8, 452. 



T. 



Taintor, Henry E., 473 ; deacon, 414. 
Taintor, James U., 474. 
Talcott Family, 27872. 
Talcott, Abigail, 277, 27872. 
Talcott, Esther, 460. 
Talcott, Helena, 315, 33072, 332. 
Talcott, John, 5872, 18372, 419. 
Talcott, Joseph (Governor), 252, 27072, 

275, 27872, 279, 280, 290. 
Talcott, Joseph (deacon), 27872, 28772, 

313, 319, 413. 
Talcott, Matthew, 461. 
Talcott, Ruth, 25372. 
Talcott, Samuel, 18372. 
Talcott, Samuel, 322, 335. 
Talcott, William, 461. 
Taylor, Jonathan, 28372. 



500 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Taylor, Nathaniel W., revival preach- 
ing, 379- 

Taylor, Solomon, 462. 

Teacher, office of, 63-4. 

Terry, Eliphalet, Jr., 461, 463. 

Terry, Nathaniel, 462. 

Terry, Roderick, 415. 

Terry, Samuel, 218. 

Terry, Seth, 11672, 36611, 370, 37472. 

Thacher, Goodrich & Stillman, 472. 

Thacher, Peter, 415, 461, 462. 

Thacker, Elias, 9. 

Thacher, Thomas, 19272. 

Thanksgiving, in 1633, 2 5 ^ n ^3^y 
95-6- 

Thompson, William, 473. 

Thursday Lecture, 69-70. 

Tilton, 20 ; Church of St. Peter, 21, 

23-4- 
Tisdale, James, 472. 
Towcester, Stone, becomes lecturer, 49. 
Treat, Robert, 244. 
Treat, Selah, 471. 
Trumbull, Benjamin, D.D., vi, 79, 

10811, 151, 153, 169, 1.71*, 191, 

193, 24872, 254, 306. 
Trumbull, H. Clay, 388. 
Trumbull, J. Hammond, vi, 9572, 10572, 

10872, 11772, 14572, 14972, 19872, 

23672, 29272, 429, 435. 
Trumbull, John, 460, 462. 
Trumbull, Joseph, 37872, 39472, 471. 
Tuckney, Anthony, 3172. 
Tudor, Samuel, 29872. 
Turner, Bela, 415. 
Turner, Caleb, 22122, 321. 
Turner, Ephraim, 252. 
Turner, William W., 381 ; deacon, 414. 
Tuthill, Elizabeth, 28972. 
Tyler, Frederick, 471. 
Tyler, Moses Coit, 11972. 
Tyng, Edward, 17272. 

u. 

Upson, Thomas, 421. 
Usher (Archbishop), 35. 



V. 

VanLennep, Henry J., 382. 
Vane, Henry, 99, 100. 
Varleth, Caspar, 17772. 
Varleth, Judith, 17772. 
Veir, Edward, 235. 
Vermilye, Robert G., 398, 403. 

w. 

Wade, Benjamin, 39372. 

Wade, Robert, 420. 

Wadsworth, Catherine, 31072. 

Wadsworth, Daniel, 24872; birth and 
early life, 277 ; settled over First 
Church, 275-7 ; marries Abigail 
Talcott, 277 ; meeting-house 
controversy, 278-287 ; dedica- 
tion sermon, 290 ; Whitefieldian 
movement, 292-308, 457 ; death, 
310; character, 310; children, 
31072 ; library, 458. 

Wadsworth, Daniel (Esq.), 31072,37872, 
461, 462, 463. 

Wadsworth, David, 462. 

Wadsworth, Elizabeth, 461, 463. 

Wadsworth, Eunice, 461, 463. 

Wadsworth, George, 461. 

Wadsworth, Hannah, 31072. 

Wadsworth, Henry, 464. 

Wadsworth, Jeremiah, 31072, 460. 

Wadsworth, Jonathan, 22172, 321. 

Wadsworth, John, 17972, 277, 464. 

Wadsworth, John, 464. 

Wadsworth, Joseph, 231, 252; hides 
the charter, 244, 277. 

Wadsworth, Joseph, Jr., 31472. 

Wadsworth, Tertius, 471. 

Wadsworth, William (early settler), 
5822, 277, 419, 449. 

Wadsworth, William, 321. 

Wainwright, Jonathan M., 3747/. 

Wakeman, Samuel, 202, 419. 

Wales, John, 463. 

Walker, George Leon, 405,481; settled 
over First Church, 408. 

Walkley, Henry, 421. 



INDEX. 



501 



Warburton Chapel, 399, 404, 407,411 n. 

Warburton, John, 471. 

Warburton, Mrs. Mary A., 404. 

Ward, Nathaniel, criticism of Hooker's 
doctrines, 123. 

Ward, Nathaniel, 15772, 419, 425. 

Ward, Samuel S., 39672, 471, 473 ; dea- 
con, 414. 

Ware, Mary, 236. 

Warham, John, 69, 193, 201, 23672; 
chosen pastor by Windsor Com- 
pany, 16; Baptism controversy, 
185, 18672, 18972. 

War, French, demoralizing effect, 318; 
revolutionary religious depres- 
sion, 340-2. 

Warner, Andrew, 5872, 87, 15772, 419; 
deacon, 59, 413. 

Warner, John, 420. 

Warren, Thomas, 251. 

Warwick, Earl of, befriends Hooker, 
38, 4172. 

Washburn, Joseph, 34972. 

Watkinson, David, 460, 463, 471. 

Watkinson, Robert, j]Zn. 

Watkinson, William, 463. 

Watson, William, 415, 462. 

Watts' " Psalms," introduced, 320. 

Watts, Richard, 421. 

Watts, William, 421. 

Waubin, John, 255. 

Way, Ebenezer, 281. 

Way, George M., 472. 

Webb, George J., 393. 

Webb, Joseph, 256. 

Webb, Richard, 5972, 420. 

Webster, Elisha, 457. 

Webster, John, 15772, 160, 1617/, 173, 
174, 419. 

Webster, Robert, 17972. 

Weld, Lewis, 415; deacon, 414. 

Welde, Thomas, 69, 71. 

Welles, Charles T., 474. 

Welles, John S., 473. 

Welles, Thomas, 15072, 167, 419. 

Wells, Charles T., 473. 

Wells, Daniel H.,415. 



Wells, James H., 460, 463. 

Wells, Mrs. James, 464. 

Wells, Thomas, 464. 

Westley, William, 421. 

Westminster Assembly, Hooker, Cot- 
ton and Davenport invited, no; 
influence in N. E., n 1-2. 

Westover, James, 19672. 

Westwood, William, 5972, 419 ; con- 
stable of Conn., 83-4. 

Wheaton, Noah, 471. 

Wheelock, Eleazar, 305 ; Indian school, 
32872. 

Wheelwright, John, Hutchinsonian 
controversy, 97, 99, 100. 

Whichcote, Benjamin, 3172. 

Whitaker, W T illiam, 30. 

White, John of Dorchester, 15, 16. 

White, John, 5872, 14972, 15772,419,424. 

White, Thomas, 29872, 457. 

Whitefield, George, arrival in N. E. 
293 ; at Boston, 293 ; Hartford 
294-6; audiences, 29472; char 
acter of his preaching, 296-7 
action of his followers, 298 
300, 305 ; testimony of Hart 
ford North Association, 298 
308, 456; of General Associa 
tion, 307 ; his death, 31 172. 

Whitehead, Samuel, 421. 

Whitgift (Archbishop), 7. 

Whiting, G. S., 474. 

Whiting, Harriet, 37472. 

Whiting, John, Will, 11972. 

Whiting, John, 183, 215, 217, 220, 242, 
450 ; birth and education, 182 ; 
settled over First Church, 175 ; 
witchcraft trials, 176; Baptism 
controversy with Haynes, 184, 
204 ; division of the church, 
205 ; Second Church formed, 
206-8 ; death, 209 ; wives and 
children, 21072. 

Whiting, Samuel, of Lynn, 159, 19272. 

Whiting, Samuel, of Windham, 21072. 

Whiting, Spencer, 460, 463. 

Whiting, William, 182, 419. 



502 



THE FIRST CHURCH IN HARTFORD. 



Whitman, Elizabeth, 334. 

Whitman, Elnathan, 308, 315, 337; 
pastor of Second Church, 27672, 
277 ; Whitefieldian movement, 
295-6, 29872, 307, 457 ; regarded 
as too conservative, 30672. 

Whitman, Samuel, 276, 308, 315; 
Whitefieldian testimony, 298/2, 

457- 
Whitmore, J. H., 473. 
Whittlesey, Chauncey, 297. 
Wickham, Sarah, 464. 
Wigglesworth, Michael, 213; supplies 

First Church, 148 ; occasion of 

Stone quarrel, 155 ; death, 149. 
Wilcox, Loyal, 415, 471 ; deacon, 414. 
Willet, Nathaniel, 17972. 
William III, 244, 245. 
Williams, Eliphalet, 315^, 337. 
Williams, Elisha, 257, 262. 
Williams, Esther, 338. 
Williams, Ezekiel, 393^, 460, 463. 
Williams, John, 27072; captivity, 338. 
Williams, Mary, 473. 
Williams, Richard, 463. 
Williams, Roger, 72, 94. 
Williams, Samuel P., 460. 
Williams, Solomon, 305. 
Williams, Thomas S., 357, 37872, 381, 

463, 471 ; deacon, 414. 
Williams, William, 27072. 
Williamson, Ebenezer, 27972. 
Williston, Seth, 35072. 
Wilson, Mrs. Elizabeth, 279, 280, 281. 
Wilson, John, 17, 71, 78, 158, 17072, 

17272; Hutchinsonian contro- 

versey, 99, 100. 
Windsor, 2 ; church call Isaac Foster, 

214-18; revival, 292. 
Windsor Company, 16, 17. 
Wing, John, 464. 
Winterton, Goodwin, 17972. 
Winterton, Gregory, 419. 
Winthrop, John, 17, 70, 71, 74, 80, 81, 

114, 115, 167; Hutchinsonian 

controversy, 98, 99. 
Witchcraft, in Hartford, 176-9. 
Wolerton, Gregory, 15772. 



Woodbridge, Mrs. Abigail, 272, 276, 
282, 28672 ; family 'and estate, 
280, 28672; gives land to First 
Society, 281, 284, 285; with- 
draws to Second Church and 
returns, 28672. 

Woodbridge, Ashbel, 272. 

Woodbridge, Benjamin, 209. 

Woodbridge, Ephraim, supplies First 
Church, 253. 

Woodbridge, James R., 374, 37472,415, 
462. 

Woodbridge, John, 238. 

Woodbridge, Samuel, 226, 27272, 29872, 
457 ; settled at East Hartford, 
251. 

Woodbridge, Timothy, birth and edu- 
tion, 238-9 ; at Kittery, 239 ; set- 
tled over First Church, 240; 
marries Mrs. Foster, 240; relig- 
ious and political state of colo- 
ny, 240-5; revival, 247; addi- 
tions, 249; ill at Boston, 261-3; 
position in colony, 253 ; Yale 
College founded, 256 ; Yale Col- 
lege controversy, 258-63 ; holds 
a rival commencement, 261 ; con- 
sociational system, 263-5; Say- 
brook synod, 265-7 ; singing 
controversy, 226; death, 271; 
eulogy, 273; wives and children, 
272 ; servants and slaves, 255 ; 
will, 27472. 

Woodbridge, Timothy, Jr., 272. 

Woodbridge, Timothy 3d, 27272. 

Woodbridge, Ward, 462. 

Woodbridge, William, 27272. 

Woodford, Thomas, 420. 

Woods, Leonard, 371. 

Woolcot, Henry, 17972. 

Woolsey, Theodore D., 398, 401. 

Wopigwooit, 8772. 

Worship, hour and method of sum- 
moning to services in early N. 
E., 222-3, 2 3°- 

Worthington, John, 3172. 

Worthington, William, 300. 

Wright, G.T., 471. 



INDEX. 



503 



Wright, H. J., 471. 

Wright, William L., 471. 

Wrisley, Richard, 420. 

Wyllys (Willis), George, early settler, 
18272, 419. 

Wyllys, George, 313, 31472, 336. 

Wyllys, Hezekiah, 252, 275, 27872, 279, 
28372, 28672. 

Wyllys, Mehitable, 219, 220, 240. 

Wyllys, Samuel, 17972 ; Whiting's class- 
mate^!^. 



Wyllys, Samuel, 460. 
Wyllys, William, 460. 



Yale College, beginnings, 255-6 ; con 
troversy as to location, 256-263 
rival commencements, 260. 

Yale, Elihu, 261. 

Young, Seth, 28972. 






